Team BRVE
by LizInABlizzard
Summary: A logger's child, a punk with a crossbow, a sharpshooter, and one of the finest sword-fighters in the world. Together, they form Team BRVE (Brave). Join Team BRVE on their time at Beacon Academy, as they make friends, enemies, and learn what it truly means to become a hunter/huntress. Loosely based on canon. *ON HOLD*
1. Preface 1: BR

**AN:**

There's going to be two prefaces before I get into the actual story. I wanted to give a little bit of introduction to each of the four characters, sort of like the trailers, but each intro was too short for it's own chapter and it was too long to put all four together.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy, and meet the first half of Team BRVE!

* * *

 **B** **rooke**

The pickup truck whirled to life as I stuck the key into the ignition. With a long sigh, I watched as I waited for the last security patrol to make it back to the house.

It was just another day, another day on the job. Wait for Dakota to get off patrol, head on off myself. Drive around the woods for eight hours. If I was lucky, there'd be a breakthrough, and I'd actually have something to fight, for once. That only ever happened around once a month, in a mixture of fortune and misfortune. I was glad, because that meant the safety of our workers was secure, but also sad, because I loved to fight. Any time a Grimm would dare show its face on our property, I was itching to kill the thing. Yet, a lack of action was fairly consistent in my life.

The headlights of a large pickup turned the corner of the dirt road in front of me. Branded on the side with the same "TimberWolf Lumber Co." logo as myself, the truck came slowly towards me, window rolling down. I reciprocated.

"Same old," the driver told me as he pulled up next to me. The driver, another wolf Faunus with short, brown hair topped by pointed brown ears, was my older brother, Dakota. I looked similar, except my ears were still floppy. Pointed ears were a sign of adulthood in a wolf Faunus. Dakota was only two years older than me, and we both lived fairly boring lives, so it didn't make much sense to me how his ears had pointed and mine hadn't yet.

"Yeah, not shocked. I'll see you at dinner." I gave my brother a nod as we rolled our windows back up and I began to drive off down the dirt road into the forest.

* * *

The dirt road was all too familiar to me. It was only four hours into my shift, and I was dreadfully bored, as usual. I had the radio cranking, and anytime I saw a logger, I would stop to make small talk, until they had to get back on the job. Between the music and the occasional small talk with the employees, I was able to stop myself from going insane, but that's about as far as it entertained me.

I glanced at the clock as it hit noon exactly. Pulling over to the side of the road, I pulled a sandwich out of the bag sitting on the passenger seat. Lunchtime.

I hopped out the driver's side door of the truck and around the back. Undoing the hatch, I hopped up into the truck bed, ready to enjoy my lunch in the shadows of the forest I knew so well. I unwrapped my sandwich and was about to take a bite when I noticed it. Silence. The forest was dead silent.

I placed the sandwich down, drawing my hand-axe from its belt loop hanging at my waist. Quiet forest was not good. There should be birds chirping. No birds meant Grimm. Grimm meant a breach. A breach meant actual work to do.

My stomach let out a long growl. This _would_ happen for the first time in months when I'm having lunch. Why would the world let me exist otherwise? Nothing could ever be simple, not in my life anyways.

I listened very carefully, scanning the woods to absorb every single detail that I could. The world was moving slowly, as if in slow motion. I cursed under my breath. It was about to happen.

My scroll lit up. Incoming call from the loggers' break house. I answered immediately.

"Brooke, we've got a breach in sector 6. Grimm spotted. What's your position?" An older man's voice barked the question.

"Sector 5, edge of sector 6. I knew it was too quiet. On my way. Over and out." I shut my scroll and burst up from the truck of the bed, sprinting towards sector 6 as I expanded my axe into full form.

 _Eyes open, ears open, instincts up. You or them, Brooke. You or them._ Thoughts flooded through my head as I dashed through the trees. A whirl of brown darting between the trees would confuse any Grimm before they had a chance to focus in on me. It was my starting strategy.

I traced my path to the outside wall, which consisted of tall wooden barriers. We _were_ a wood farm, after all. It wasn't much to keep Grimm out, but for the most part, it worked for a couple months at a time.

 _Find the breach, find the Grimm. Kill the Grimm, fix the breach._ The steps repeated themselves in my head as I ran along the border of sector 6. The longer it took me to get to the breach, the longer the Grimm had to spread throughout the woods.

That's when I stumbled across the hole. A huge rip in the wooden wall stood out like a sore thumb as I got closer. Running up to it, I glanced through. No Grimm around the outside. A hole this big had to be made by an Ursa. I let out a small groan. Just what I needed, an Ursa. I was happy for the fight, but not very happy about the fact that it was an Ursa. The largest, toughest Grimm around these parts. Took far too long to slaughter, in my opinion.

 _Found the breach. Now find the Grimm._

I glanced around the area near the hole. A series of claw marks were embedded into a nearby tree. I furrowed my brow. That was a damn good tree, worth a decent amount of money. Now it was ruined. It would probably die soon, unless we cut it down first, and salvaged the wood around the claw marks. I sighed, placing my axe down into the ground by its base, and pulled open my scroll. I sent a picture back to the loggers' base. _Take care of this after the breach is fixed._ I sent the message with the picture, and picked my axe back up, beginning tracking methods.

Tracks were easy enough to find. An Ursa's footsteps were huge and easy to predict. I kept an eye out for the trees, looking to see if there were any more claw marks chalking up our crops. One more clawed tree, another picture.

Rustling.

I lowered my posture to the ground, axe at the ready. The two blades reflected some of the sunlight peering through the trees, sending off a clear signal to that Ursa that I was here. My eyes scanned the area around me very carefully. We didn't have a lot of brush in our forest, as it was a wood farm above all, so I was confused as to where the gigantic bear Grimm could be hiding.

I stood carefully watching for about thirty seconds before I concluded that the Ursa could not be anywhere near me. Looking around for more tracks, I very carefully, and very alertly, began to follow them once more.

I stumbled upon a small clearing. This was where the loggers had been working who had heard the breach happening and spotted the Ursa through the trees. Their truck was long gone, but their materials left behind. Stumps littered the area, as well as a fallen tree, and many large pieces of expensive logging equipment. The latter was being torn apart by the Ursa, which, to my misfortune, was not just an Ursa. It was an Ursa Major, larger, tougher, and more deadly. This particular Ursa Major had realized my presence, and turned to face me, roaring into the air.

I let out a small smile as the Ursa Major charged towards me. Carefully calculating my movements, I leaped up into the air, using my axe as a propellant to push me high above the large spikes on the Grimm's back. Spinning midair, I slammed my axe into its back, in-between the cracks in its armor.

The Ursa Major let out a very painful sounding cry. Tearing my axe from its back, I landed on my feet behind the injured Grimm. It turned towards me once more, arm ready to swipe my head clean off my body.

Ducking out of the way, I aimed the blade of my axe directly at the palm of its paw too quickly for the Ursa Major to realize what I had done. As quickly as it had gone in, I yanked my axe out, rolling backwards and as far away from the Ursa Major as time would allow. Letting out another immense cry of pain, the Grimm charged towards me once more. As it charged, I spun my axe in the air, in what would appear to be nothing more than a flashy show of my control over my weapon. After a few very fast spins, I slammed the axe down into the ground, leaping up as it made impact. The force that the spinning had built up in the heavy weapon set tremors out into the area around us, shaking the Ursa Major's stance and forcing it to fall over.

Yanking up my axe as I charged forward towards the stunned bear Grimm, I spun my axe so it made a clean decapitation of the mighty Grimm. I landed next to the Ursa Major's severed neck, catching my breath as the adrenaline of the fight began to wear off.

"Well, that was something," an unfamiliar voice spoke, only a few feet away from me. Adrenaline and paranoia rushing back, I turned swiftly, axe ready to strike. A scruffy man with black hair, stubble, and resting a very large sword on his shoulder. "Woah, easy there. I'm not here to pick a fight."

I did not lower my axe. "Who are you?"

"The name's Qrow, Qrow Branwen, hunter. Would you like some help with that hole?" He jabbed his head towards the part of the wall with the huge gaping hole.

Slowly and unsurely, I lowered my axe. If he really was a hunter, he was no danger to me. "Sure."

* * *

 **Rocky**

I'd just assumed it would be another normal night for me.

With my headphones on, I wandered the streets of Vale, searching for a shop open to look for some new records for my collection. Mom always hated when I wandered around this late at night, but I mean, no one's gonna mess with a mean looking kid with a green mohawk and a leather jacket with spikes. Most people would run _away_ from me, not towards me.

Still, Mom had a decent enough reason to be worried. Vale had been victim to a string of dust robberies recently, which was enough reason for her to want me to stay home at night. It was also enough reason for me to want to go out, crossbow stored away in my backpack. Perhaps I was a little overzealous, but if I ever ran into whoever was behind the robberies, they wouldn't be able to escape one of my arrows.

At least, that's what I thought.

I found myself in the only shop I could find open, _From Dust Until Dawn_. It was partially a dust shop, partially a collector's shop, with everything from vinyl to comics to action figures. I pulled my headphones off of my ears and left them around my neck as I entered the shop. The shopkeeper, an old man I had known for several years, smiled when he saw me.

We exchanged a small nod, as I scanned around the store. It was empty, except for a small girl clad in red at the back of the store, thumbing through some comics, music coming from her headphones. _This Will Be the Day_. Good song. That girl had some good tastes.

I slid my headphones back onto my head, heading over to the music section. Scanning the genres, my eyes settled on what I was looking for. _Punk rock._ Perfect. I thumbed my way through the vinyl to see if anything new had come in. Losing myself in the music, I didn't hear the commotion going on behind me.

I felt a hand tap my shoulder. Jumping as I turned around, I came face to face with a man with a gun.

"I said, put your hands up, punk." The man barked, jabbing his gun at me.

I raised an eyebrow, glancing out of the corner of my eye. The same was happening to the young girl. _Poor thing._ I didn't know if I could get myself out of this without her getting hurt as well.

"You don't know what you're getting yourself into here," I glared at the man in front of me.

"Do I now, punk? What are you gonna do about it?"

There was a large crash coming from the other side of the store. The man whipped around to see what I had seen. A blur of red flashed as the man who had been holding up the girl crashed out the front window. Several more men in black suits and one man in a white suit stood around the front, sticking up the shop keeper.

"Get her!" the white suit barked.

 _Alright, so she can take care of herself_. While the man who was holding up me was distracted, I yanked the crossbow out of my bag, and loaded it, ready to shoot the man. But he was already gone, chasing after the girl outside.

White suit still hadn't seen me, distracted by the fight between the girl and the men. I darted outside, armed and ready to fire.

As I looked out at the girl, my jaw dropped. The girl couldn't look older than fourteen, but she was wielding a scythe over twice her size. _Alright, she can definitely take care of herself_.

Two black suits were knocked out already, and there were three more to go. Two were trying to charge her at once, so I took the liberty of firing one of my arrows at one of them. It caught him in the shoulder, and he flew backwards far away from the girl. As the girl slammed another black suit far away, she looked at me.

"I come in peace. You good?" I asked, loading another arrow into my crossbow.

"Yeah I'm good. Name's Ruby. You?" The girl was doing something to her scythe. Reloading? Probably.

"Rocky. Let's kick some butt." I jumped to her side, standing back to back with Ruby.

The man who I had shot the arrow had pulled the arrow from his shoulder and got up, charging for us again. The other man who hadn't been attacked yet was also charging forward, getting ready to shoot.

"You should learn when to give up!" I yelled out, firing another arrow into the man who I had shot before, sending him flying backwards, this time slamming into the wall of the store.

I glanced over my shoulder as I effortlessly loaded in another arrow, watching Ruby's scythe collapse into some form of gun, something like a rifle. I didn't know a whole lot about guns, but I could put together a crossbow with some scrap metal. With a single shot, she fired at the final black suit, sending him flying, where he landed with a _thud_ and did not move.

Our attention was averted to white coat, who was dropping his cigar and putting it out with his cane. With both of our weapons aimed directly at him, he maintained an odd sense of calm.

"Well… I think we can all say it's been an eventful evening, and as much as I'd love to stick around…" The man rose his cane, a small cross grid appearing, revealing its disguise as a rifle. Before I had a chance to react, he continued. "I' afraid this is where we part ways."

A red blast shot towards us. I leaped backwards, flipping in midair. When I landed on my feet again, I quickly looked around, getting a grasp on the situation. Ruby was fine, and the man in the white coat was climbing the ladder on a nearby building. The shopkeeper was standing, shocked, in the ruined front of his shop.

"You okay if we go after him?" Ruby called out to the shopkeeper, who gave a quick nod. In a blur, the girl dashed off, leaving a trail of rose petals behind her. I ran for the ladder as well. _Speed semblance, okay. That explains the blur of red earlier_.

I climbed, skipping rungs at a time, as I made my way to the top of the building as fast as I could. As I climbed onto the rooftop and pulled my crossbow back out, I saw white coat leaping onto an escape Bullhead. Ruby was standing, axe out, ready to fight, but it did not look like this would end well.

"End of the line, Red!" The man called out, throwing a red dust gem at her feet and firing his cane.

I leaped forward, preparing to shove Ruby out of the way from the explosion. This would not end easily for the both of us.

There was a blur of purple. _Oh no._ I shoved Ruby to the ground as a protective barrier formed around us. I turned to see a woman in a purple cape, casting the protection spell around us. Ruby and I stood up quickly, as the woman waved her weapon, a riding crop, and sent several streaks of purple at the craft.

I couldn't see much, but dread filled my stomach. _Not her!_

A woman in red, her face not able to be seen, appeared in the open Bullhead door, ready to fight the purple woman. Naturally, the purple Huntress blocked a burst of energy aimed directly at her. As the two carried on their fight, Ruby tugged at my sleeve.

"Is she… a huntress?" the girl whispered excitedly.

"Yeah." I spoke, scared for a second of the question I thought Ruby was going to ask.

I looked towards the red woman on the Bullhead. As much as I hated to admit it, I had a duty to help the woman. Aiming my crossbow in under a second, I fired at the woman, who instantly blocked it. I scowled.

Ruby fired her scythe/gun, even though it was still a scythe, with the edge dug into the rooftop. I decided not to attempt to understand the girl's weapon. The woman blocked the shots, and geared up a ton of energy.

I felt a force come over my body. _Goddamn telekinesis. I hate when she does this._ I found Ruby and myself shoved off to the side as the purple woman dove out of the way of a massive explosion.

Standing up once again, I dusted off my pants as I watched the Bullhead fly off into the distance. I picked up my crossbow and slid it back into my backpack.

"Ohmygod! You're a huntress!" Ruby squealed. "Can I have your autograph?"

The woman scowled. "You two, will be coming with me. And, you," she pointed her crop directly at me, as I took a step back, "you, young man, are in _so_ much trouble."

"Sorry, Mom. I couldn't leave her on her own." I held my hands up in defense, knowing how much of a pain it would be to be at the receiving end of her stick.

The woman scowled. "We'll discuss this later, Richard."

"I thought you said your name is Rocky," Ruby whispered to me.

"It is," I whispered back, "only my mom calls me Richard."

It did not take a moment more before my mother dragged us by the collar of my jacket and the hood of Ruby's cloak, aiming to get us off of this roof, and out of the night.


	2. Preface 2: VE

**AN:**

This preface is a bit on the shorter side. I unfortunately lost my original copy of this preface in a freak Microsoft Word accident. I'm not 100% happy about the way that this one went, especially Elliot's introduction. I was in class when writing it, so I couldn't listen to music, which is where I draw my inspiration for a lot of my writing. I just wanted to get it out there anyways, because I really want to get onto the actual story, since these introductions aren't meant to be the most perfect thing in the world. I'll probably go back and rewrite it at some point, but we'll see.

Full chapters will be coming in the next day or so! I'm very excited to get along with the actual story. Thanks for reading!

* * *

 **Violet**

You know, you'd think that if you were a multi-millionaire and your daughter was considered to be the best sharpshooter in all of Vale, you _might_ invest in a shooting range for your own mansion. _That_ , of course, made far too much sense to my father.

 _We make the weapons, not use them in the house._ I could almost hear my father's words echoing in my head. My eyes rolled at the thought of that statement. _He_ might only _look_ at the weapons we made, but _I_ used them in my quest to become a huntress. Dad only really saw my dreams as a way to advertise our products – what better way to advertise Vince Weapons than have Violet Vince herself in the field fighting with them?

It seemed a bit ironic to me, considering I had forged my own guns at Signal. Every student there did, I wasn't allowed to use weapons from my family's company. But of course, my father insisted we slap a logo on them anyways, because any missed opportunity to advertise was money lost. I'd gotten away with claiming I couldn't do that at Signal, but now that I was headed off to Beacon, Father insisted upon it.

 _This would be so much easier if I didn't have to go out in public to do this._ I sighed as I approached my favorite shooting range. People were giving me all kinds of strange looks on the street, and rightfully so. _Most_ 17-year-old girls don't walk around the streets of Vale with a sniper rifle strapped to her back and two pistols clipped to her belt. But _I_ was a huntress-in-training. Well, in a few more days, anyways, when I got to Beacon. _Plus,_ I was Violet Vince, heiress to the Vince Weapons Company. If they hadn't known before, the giant scope logo with a V on it that now donned my sniper rifle wasn't exactly _subtle_.

The owner of the range smiled upon seeing me enter. He was used to me being here nearly every day whenever school was on a break. I refused to let myself get rusty, under any circumstances. As my entry date to Beacon approached, it was more important than ever to keep my aim accurate and my shots fast. The owner, a man named Ray who appeared to be in his young 30s, greeted me.

"Hello Violet! Same as always?" Ray asked, gestured towards my normal booth.

I nodded with a smile. "You got it!" I slid the deposit of lien across the counter. The range offered a number of different ranges and simulations, and one would pay a flat charge to use one for an hour, and then additional lien each hour after that.

"When do you leave for Beacon?" Ray asked as he pulled a key out from underneath his counter.

"In about three days," I explained as I shifted the sniper rifle slung across my back.

"I'm excited for you and all, don't get me wrong. It's just about to be a lot more lonely in here." Ray led me over to my preferred simulation.

"I'll make sure to stop by and say hi whenever I'm in Vale for shopping or whatever!" I assured him with a smile as he opened the door my booth.

"I'll hold you to it. Have a good simulation!" Ray nodded as he left for the lobby.

I entered door and shut the door behind me. The booth was accessible by a short ladder, which led me to a trap door that remained in the corner of the booth. The booth had wooden walls on the bottom that extended into windows covered in pitch black, which would remain that way until I began the simulation. I smiled slightly to myself. Ray was a very nice man. He often tried to give me discounts since I came here nearly every day, but I always refused to pay anything less than the normal amount. I had the money to spare, and I would rather it go to Ray making more profit than just sitting around doing nothing with it.

I slung my rifle off of my back and rested it in the corner of the booth. The range was far too small to practice my sniping, so I usually only worked on my pistol shots here. Fumbling around with the ammo clips in my belt, I found the normal ammo. No need to waste dust-infused ammo on a simulation.

I removed my pistols and loaded each of them up. After doing one final weapons check, I quickly tapped around on the control module, selecting the simulation I wanted to do. Slamming my elbow on the bright green _START_ button, the simulation began.

The black window coverings that surrounded my booth retracted, leaving me in the dead center of my little personal range. The walls on the far ends of the range opened up, and people and Grimm shaped silhouettes came charging towards me from all directions.

I opened fire. Each bullet left my weapons in rapid succession, with my fingers alternating which pistol would fire off next. Each bullet hit a fatal point on a silhouette – head, neck, heart, or the spots on different Grimm that were not covered by armor. Not a single bullet missed one of these vital targets. Each time a fatal point was hit, the silhouette would collapse and be sent back into the wall from which it came.

The second wave came charging in. More Grimm silhouettes. I repeated my same actions, firing bullets at the fatal points. Once again, not a single bullet missed. This was just too easy.

I pressed the red _STOP_ button before the next wave came. I felt no real need to waste my ammo on this any longer. I just liked being in the range, and I still had around forty minutes of time left that I had paid for.

I unloaded what was left of the ammo in the two pistols. Tucking both the ammo and the empty pistols back into my belt, I sat down in the booth and leaned up against the wall. I picked up my sniper rifle and decided to clean it out, despite not having been used since I had last had a sniping lesson at Signal. Cleaning my guns was almost relaxing to me, so it was only natural that I would do this.

I was nearly done cleaning out my gun when a speaker in the booth piped up. "Hey, Violet, there's some kid here with a green mohawk and a crossbow. Says he know you and figured you were here. He bothering you or something?" Ray's voice came across the speaker.

I scrambled up and pressed down on the microphone button on the control module. "I know the kid, he's not bothering me. I'll be down in a minute."

Picking up my sniper and slinging it across my back once more, I exited the booth and began my climb down the ladder. _Why was he here? I haven't seen him since school ended for the summer._

I headed down into the lobby to find exactly who I expected – my best friend, Rocky.

"Rocky! Long time, no see. What's up?" I called out as I walked into the otherwise empty lobby.

A smirk formed across his face. I noticed a small healing cut, probably no older than a few days, on his right cheek. "How would you like your first unofficial mission?" the punk kid asked.

I almost instantly forgot about the cut. I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. "Sign me up!"

* * *

"So, Rocky, what is this mission, exactly?" I asked as we approached a Bullhead waiting for us in a nearby park.

"There's been an odd number of Grimm circulating on the edge of the Emerald Forest. With school starting at Beacon in just a few days, they have to be either pushed back or picked off. So, Mom wanted me to come find you, and the two of us are going to be flying around in this Bullhead while we pick off the Grimm." Rocky nodded towards the Bullhead.

"They couldn't get any actual hunters or huntresses, or even any upperclassmen to do it?" I rose an eyebrow.

"She's got the best sharpshooter and the best crossbow wielder in Vale at her disposal. Why would she want anyone else?" Rocky shrugged.

"We were the only ones available, weren't we?" I knew this boy all too well.

"Maybe." Rocky muttered. "Doesn't matter. Point is, we got asked to complete a mission before we're even officially students of Beacon."

I chuckled slightly as I hopped up into the Bullhead. Rocky followed, just before it took off. I slung the sniper rifle off of my back and laid down on my stomach as I set myself up towards the open wall.

"Let's kill some scum," I smirked upwards towards my crossbow wielding friend, who was also loaded and ready to go. This would be a piece of cake.

"Let's _Rocky_ their world!"

I glared at the boy. "Have you been hanging out with Yang recently?"

"Uh, maybe."

"Just shut up and shoot the damn Grimm." I looked into my scope, ready to fire.

* * *

 **Elliot**

Dad had always told me that a walk in the woods was good for clearing my head. I wasn't sure if it was true, exactly, but the forest sure was pretty.

I'd probably walked this stretch of the woods more than anybody. The trial was simple, and there were rarely any Grimm around. I knew exactly where I should turn to avoid running into the great wooden wall that surrounded the land belonging to TimberWolf Lumber Co., even if I'd never seen inside the place. I knew exactly where the perfect, quiet little creek was that was so beautiful to look at.

I was heading for the creek in question when I stumbled upon my best friend, Pyrrha Nikos, sitting on a log next to the creek.

"Hey Pyrrha," I called out from a solid ten feet away. I knew better than to scare the Mistral Champion in the middle of the woods.

As if on cue, Pyrrha jumped at the sound of my voice, her hand hovering over her spear. She let out a sigh when she realized it was only me. "Hello Elliot. Come sit with me."

I took a spot next to her on the log, watching the gentle creek streaming through the ground. "Nervous?" I asked her, not looking away from the creek.

"A little." I saw the girl shrug out of the corner of my eye.

I looked at her and smirked. "Pyrrha Nikos, the invincible girl, is nervous about going to Beacon?"

"Oh, shut up." Pyrrha playfully punched my arm. "Don't act like you aren't nervous too. We're moving halfway across the world tomorrow. There's plenty any sane person would be worried about."

"You act like I'm sane." I was met with another punch, this one a little less playful. "Okay, okay. I'm nervous too. Whyelse would I be out here?"

"That's what I thought," Pyrrha smirked back, ignoring my question. "What's your biggest worry?"

"That I won't be good enough." I looked back over towards the creek.

"Please, Elliot. You got in, you're good enough. You're the best swordsman in the world!"

"That's a bit of a stretch."

I received another shove from the girl. "You got in. You're good enough."

I ignored her words. "What are you most nervous about?" I looked back up at her.

"People wanting to be friends with Pyrrha Nikos, the champion fighter, not Pyrrha Nikos, the girl." Pyrrha looked out over the creek again.

"I'll fight anyone who tries to take advantage of you like that," I declared proudly.

"Elliot, I appreciate the offer, but I'll manage for myself. Besides, I've already got one friend coming to Beacon with me. My _best_ friend." A smile fell over Pyrrha's face as she looked up at me.

"Yeah, I think we'll be okay." I smiled back.

 _Rustling_.

The two of us snapped up off the log, on alert, weapons up. Grimm were uncommon in these woods, but not unheard of. Standing back to back, we circled around, trying to identify where the rustling had come from. Whatever stupid Grimm was out there had made a _very_ stupid mistake.

"Left!" Pyrrha called out. I whipped around to see two Beowolves stalking their way out of the bushes.

I narrowed my eyes, swords ready to attack. "You take left, I'll take right."

"Got it," Pyrrha called out, and we dove into action.

I leaped forwards, my two swords working their magic. One sword, the longer of the two, was light and silver, a bit skinnier, and a bit sharper than the other. The other sword was slightly shorter, fatter, and made of a darker silver. Its blade was still sharp, but certainly not as sharp as the extremely offensive sword I wielded.

My defensive sword covering my blind spot, I swung my arm midair as I slashed at the Beowolf. I felt its claw pushing against my defensive sword, a very stupid mistake on its part. Pushing back with the defensive sword, the Beowolf lost its balance while it cried out in pain from the slash across its chest. I landed on the ground in front of it, ready to engage once more.

The Beowolf attempted to swipe towards the arm with the offensive sword this time. I leaped backwards, completing a backflip, in order to dodge the swipe. With a smirk, I spun around shining light off of my defensive sword into the eyes of the Beowolf, blinding it temporarily. I used the moment of confusion to slice once more with my offensive sword, creating a clean cut across the neck of the Beowolf.

I turned around to see that Pyrrha had also slain her beast.

"You know," I said in between attempts to catch my breath, "it probably wasn't the best idea for us to come out into the forest all nervous. Attracts Grimm."

Pyrrha looked at me and smirked. "You aren't wrong. Let's head home, we'll have plenty of fighting to do in the next few years."

I sheathed my swords and kicked the head of the Beowolf before we headed off for the trial that would lead us out of the woods. "You can say that again."


	3. Chapter 1: Welcome to Beacon

**AN:**

As some of you will notice, the perspective has changed from first to third person. I found it difficult to write the prefaces in third person, as its important that those bits focus entirely on the thoughts of the characters and less of what's going on, but for the actual story, since there are many different perspective changes necessary, and the emphasis is more on action than thought, I decided to switch to third person. This is still a learning experience for me, so please be aware that things will likely improve as the story continues on!

On another note, updates will be semi-sparse for the coming week or so. It's finals time, and as a history major, this means that my finals are primarily papers, turning "finals week" into "finals-three-weeks-between-thanksgiving-and-break". Once those are over, however, updates will be much more consistent for a little while, at least until school starts back up again and I start piling up that work again.

Now that those bits of housekeeping are out of the way, enjoy this chapter!

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

 **Welcome to Beacon**

Brooke Timber was standing in the middle of the large airship, looking around at these people she was to consider her classmates. The whole notion of school was still so new to Brooke, but she was trying very hard to pick up on the social cues she noticed around her. She'd been on the airship for some time already, but was careful not to interact with everyone. She was best off just observing for now.

Brooke took in everything that was going on around her. One of the first things the brown-haired wolf Faunus had noticed upon entering the ship was that there were no other first year Faunus. Brooke felt like she stuck out like a sore thumb in the sea of humans with her floppy brown ears, but she tried very hard to ignore the nagging feeling in the back of her head. Sulking into the corner, she hoped to remain unseen for just a little bit longer, at the very least. She needed to get a grip on who would be friendly and who would not before she went off introducing herself to people.

What the sulking Faunus did not see was the bit of a reunion going on in on the other side of the airship. A busty blonde brawler and a small girl with red and black hair and a red hood stood around, watching the view out of the window. The blonde looked over at the girl in red and a smile burst across her face. Leaping forward, the blonde tackled the red girl in a huge hug, nearly causing the smaller of the two to topple over.

"Oh, I can't believe my baby sister is going to Beacon with me! This is the best day ever!" The blonde was nearly strangling the girl to death.

"Yang, please stop," the red clad girl gasped out, attempting to fill her lungs with air.

Yang released her sister from the hug, still smiling as the younger girl struggled to catch her breath. "But, Ruby, I'm so proud of you!"

"Really Sis, it was nothing," Ruby shrugged.

"Well, if it isn't Yang and… Ruby?" The two girls turned around to see the source of the voice, a punk kid standing behind them. The boy was of average height, but his bright green mohawk added a couple of inches to his stature. True to his style, the boy was sporting one of the most bizarre outfits the two sisters had ever seen. Between his lime green shirt, silver skinny jeans, spiked black leather jacket, and the piercings on his eyebrow, the kid looked like something straight out of a punk magazine. With a crossbow strapped to his back with a few quivers filled with differently colored arrows and his black fingerless gloves, Ruby would normally be intimidated by the boy. But having already met him, she felt no worries about the wall of punk standing in front of her.

A smile sprawled across Yang's face almost instantly upon seeing the boy. "Rocky, my man! Long time, no see!" The blonde reached across to give the boy their signature handshake.

"You know Ruby?" Rocky asked upon completing the handshake, his lime green eyes filling with confusion.

"I should be asking you the same question. Ruby's my little sister!" Yang rose an eyebrow at Rocky.

"Rocky helped me that night, with the robbery!" Ruby exclaimed, giving the punk a warm smile.

"Wow, I'm so stupid." Rocky's laugh made his mohawk bounce slightly and the chains coming from his belt jingle. "I knew Yang had a little sister, and I just never put two and two together that night."

"Glad to hear you're embracing your true identity, doofus." Another voice came from behind the two girls, who spun around once more to see who was there.

A girl on the shorter side, but still taller than Ruby, with long, purple hair that reached her butt, approached the trio with a smile. Her dark purple eyes matched the color of her dark purple combat jacket, which covered up most of her light purple shirt. The only parts of her being that weren't purple were her pale skin and grey cargo shorts.

Ruby had thought she'd met some cool people in her time, but the purple-haired girl seemed to be on an entirely new level. The girl's belt was filled with compartments, two of which held identical pistols, and the others filled to the brim with ammo of all sorts, even dust infused ammo. A sniper rifle was slung over her shoulder, completing the girl's trio of weapons. What really tied the aesthetic all together, however, was a dark purple choker around the girl's neck.

Ruby couldn't contain her excitement for the weapons. "Is that a sniper rifle?" The young girl was practically bouncing.

"I believe what you were looking for there is 'Hi, my name's Ruby. What's yours?'" Yang laughed as she placed a hand on the shoulder of her younger sister, who immediately blushed at her excitement.

"Uh, hi, my name's Ruby. What's yours?" Ruby asked sheepishly, unable to believe she had already embarrassed herself that badly.

The purple girl laughed, however. "I'm Violet, an old friend of your sister's. The three of us were in almost all the same classes together at Signal. And, yes, it is a sniper rifle."

"That's so cool!" Ruby cried out, ogling over the partially hidden weapon.

"You weren't kidding. She loves weapons." Violet looked at Yang, who was still smiling.

"I have a feeling you two are going to get along just fine." Yang put her free hand around Violet's shoulder, bringing the three together. "Get over here, doofus," Yang laughed as she nodded her head to Rocky, who joined the group.

"Are you guys ready to take on Beacon?" Yang whispered, their heads all together.

"Oh yeah!" Ruby cried out, causing the other two to break into a smile at the girl's enthusiasm.

The group was interrupted by a screen near them on the airship blaring to life with news. The separated to watch what had popped up on the screen – a report on the robbery that had occurred just a few nights ago and had led Ruby to an early acceptance to Beacon Academy.

" _The robbery was led by nefarious criminal Roman Torchwick, who continues to evade authorities. If you have any information on his whereabouts, please contact the Vale Police Department. Back to you, Lisa._ "

"That was the guy, the guy from the other night!" Ruby whispered, receiving a nod from Rocky, confirming her story. Before anyone else could say anything, the news anchor Lisa Lavender appeared on the screen, next to a photo of several Faunus demonstrators holding up signs that read "WE ARE NOT ANIMALS!".

" _Thank you, Cyril. In other news, this Saturday's Faunus Civil Rights protest turned dark when members of the White Fang disrupted the ceremony. The once peaceful organization has now disrupted…_ "

The screen closed, and a hologram replaced it. Glynda Goodwitch, a woman now all too familiar to Ruby, appeared in its place.

"Isn't that –?" Ruby turned to Rocky, who hushed her.

"It's a secret, okay?" Rocky asked the girl, knowing very well that she was about to ask about his relation to the professor. Ruby nodded, reluctantly, unsure as to why Rocky would hide his connection to a powerful huntress. She also wondered why he wore such a silly outfit, and why he felt the need to spike up his hair like that, but she knew it wasn't really her place to judge.

"Hello, and welcome to Beacon!" The holographic woman appeared far more cheery than Ruby remembered.

Across the airship, Brooke began congregating forwards with the other students around her around the closest hologram. They all knew that the slightly awkward, slightly too long airship ride was coming to an end. Whatever was to come next was either to be good, or even more awkward. Knowing Brooke's luck, it would probably be the latter.

"My name is Glynda Goodwitch. You are among a privileged few who have received the honor of being selected to attend this prestigious academy! Our world is experiencing an incredible time of peace, and as future Huntsmen and Huntresses, it is your duty to uphold it. You have demonstrated the courage needed for such a task, and now it our turn to provide you with the knowledge and the training to protect our world."

While on opposite sides of the ship, the group of former Signal students and the lone wolf all heard the same message. While the four chatted excitedly and watched the view out the window, the Faunus found her stomach twisting in anxiety. She wasn't the only one with a nervous stomach, apparently, because a blonde-haired boy was running towards the back of the ship, on the verge of puking. From the noises of disgust coming from the others, Brooke mentally corrected that to on the verge of puking _again_.

Almost as if to confirm her theory, Brooke heard yelling from the other end of the ship.

"Oh, Yang, gross! You have puke on your shoe!"

"Gross, gross, gross, gross, gross, gross, gross, gross!"

"Get-get away! Get away from me! Get away from me! Get away from me! Get away from me!"

Brooke put her hand over her mouth in mock disgust, but in reality, used it to hide a small smile forming over her face. Something about the banter between the two girls that she had just heard made her feel a little bit more comfortable about coming to Beacon. It almost reminded her of herself and her little sister, but thinking about her family made her stomach twist again. Since she didn't want to end up like Vomit Boy over there, she turned her attention back to the window, watching as they pulled over the grand school that she was about to call home.

* * *

It did not take very long for the airships to land. Ruby, Yang, Violet, and Rocky were excitedly bouncing off of the ship, even the usually calm Rocky and refined Violet bubbling with excitement. The blonde who had been puking on the airship earlier dashed past them, emptying his stomach into a nearby trash can. Not far behind the group was Brooke, still attempting to blend herself in with the crowd.

Brooke looked around at the crowd. Other airships were also landing, many bearing different symbols on them. Brooke immediately recognized the symbol of Mistral on an airship landing nearby. It was much smaller than the Vale ship, but it was still definitely from Mistral. The image sent a spike of confusion running through her brain. _Why didn't they send me in on the ship from Mistral? Why bring me to Vale so early?_

Still scanning the crowd, Brooke looked out for other first year Faunus. There was one girl who she thought at first might have some sort of black ears, but she realized it was simply a bow. With a light and silent sigh, Brooke realized she wouldn't have any Faunus to default to. Instead, she tried to writhe her way around to the Mistral ship, hoping that maybe she could find a friend in a world of people who already knew each other. Literally, any familiar face would do.

A familiar face was what Brooke had wished for, and she certainly received that wish. Brooke noticed the only two individuals, a guy and a girl, to get off of the Mistral airship.

The girl was easily the more recognizable to the two. Anyone who hadn't been living under a rock would have known who the girl was. With long red hair pulled up in a ponytail, plenty of bronze armor, and a shield/spear combo across her back, Brooke instantly recognized her. Pyrrha Nikos, four-time Mistral Tournament Champion. Pyrrha was the _only_ person to have ever done so.

The other boy took Brooke a second longer to recognize. Matching Pyrrha in height and posture, just seeming a little bit scrawnier than the girl many had dubbed "The Invincible Girl". His scraggly blonde hair was far lighter than the boy who had been vomiting on the Vale ship. He seemed to be the living embodiment of light, with very pale skin, a light-yellow shirt underneath reflective silver armor, and light blue combat pants. Even the boy's eyes seemed to be a lighter blue than the sky itself. Strapped to his waist were two swords, sheathed away in the daytime.

The boy of light was Elliot Lukas, the second most recognizable face in Mistral. Brooke was a bit shocked to see him here, considering everything. Brooke tried to push it aside. The media could be ruthless. The two warriors, although the media made them out to be rivals, seemed to be good friends.

Brooke continued the awkward shuffle through the kids towards the two from Mistral. Head low and hands in pockets, Brooke realized how much she stood out among all the other kids arriving from all of the ships. Not only did the floppy ears atop her head make her stand out, but she did not dress like everyone else, decked in armor or some sort of combat clothing. Between the hand-axe hanging at her waist, her lumberjack-esque attire, and her conspicuous ears, Brooke wasn't exactly doing a good job of blending in.

There was an odd explosion over near the Vale ship. The crowd of kids looked over to see a butt of dust clearing. Ruby was sitting in the middle of a crater created by an _actual_ Dust explosion, with a face all too familiar to Brooke telling her off.

 _Weiss Schnee_. Brooke sneered internally. Everything about the heiress sent off red flags to Brooke. The white hair tied up in a side ponytail, the condescending yelling Brooke could hear from across the courtyard, and that godawful logo on the back of her jacket… Everything about her made Brooke feel regret for coming here and leaving her family behind.

A small voice spoke up in Brooke's head. _Give her a chance. You aren't your dad. Maybe she isn't her dad, either._

Brooke made the decision to shake off the feeling, keeping up with the dispersing Mistral kids, heading up into the school. She'd give Weiss a chance, sure, but the moment Brooke noticed something was wrong, Weiss wasn't getting a second one. Brooke had enough of her Schnee family in her life. There was no way Weiss was going to mess up Beacon for her. There was no way Weiss was going to mess up the only way Brooke had to bring pride back to her family name.

She'd give her a chance. That much was for sure.

Brooke's train of thought was interrupted as she noticed that Weiss had stopped yelling. Brooke looked up and saw the girl with the black bow that Brooke had seen on the Vale airship telling Weiss off. Brooke considered going over to join the black bowed girl, but decided against it.

* * *

Pyrrha and Elliot were looking around in awe. The school was more beautiful than they could ever imagine. Stopping to take in the sheer power of the gorgeous campus, Pyrrha noticed someone walking somewhat towards them out of the corner of her eye. The wolf Faunus, who Pyrrha assumed to be a boy based on the cropped, messy brown hair and the very flat chest, donned an open brown flannel over a black shirt, brown cargo pants, and had a hand-axe hanging at the belt. The wolf Faunus looked like a lumberjack to the warrior girl, causing one surname to pop up in her mind. Timber.

"Hello!" Pyrrha gave a small wave and smile to the Wolf Faunus. Elliot gave Pyrrha a glance before noticing the wolf Faunus heading towards them, and added a friendly smile to the mix.

"Hi," Brooke said a little sheepishly, approaching the two, a bit relieved that they had spoken first.

"You're from Mistral, aren't you?" Elliot asked the Faunus. "You look like one of the Timber boys."

Brooke smiled sheepishly. "Yeah, I'm from Mistral. Timber girl, but close enough. My name's Brooke."

Elliot felt his face filling with red. "Oh gosh, I'm sorry."

Brooke smile became much more confident. "It's fine, don't worry about it. I'm kind of amazed someone knew my family all the way out here."

"When you grow up in Mistral, you see almost as many TimberWolf Lumber Co. logos as the Schnee Dust Company or Vince Weapons!" Elliot laughed.

"I didn't really get out much as a kid," Brooke smiled sheepishly.

"Well, you're welcome to come into the school with us. I'm Pyrrha, and this is Elliot," Pyrrha said while offering another one of her caring smiles, gesturing to herself and the boy, as if Brooke didn't already know who they were.

Brooke went along with the introductions, throwing in a "Nice to meet you two!" before the trio from Mistral began to head for the school, chatting excitedly about how beautiful Beacon was. To Brooke's relief, the duo didn't ask any more questions about Brooke's family or how a Timber ended up at a school like Beacon. The small talk instantly made Brooke more comfortable, even if her only experience with Pyrrha and Elliot in the past was watching them compete on television in the Mistral Tournament. Yet, they acted as if Brooke was just like them.

* * *

"Ruby! Over here! I save you a spot!" Yang waved towards her sister, who had just entered the main hall of Beacon with the boy who had vomited on the Vale airship. Violet and Rocky, who were standing next to Yang, also gave a small wave to the girl.

The younger girl turned to the scraggly blonde boy. "Oh! Hey, I-I gotta go! I'll see you after the ceremony!" Ruby dashed off towards her older sister.

The boy sighed and shook his head. "Great. Where am I supposed to find another nice, quirky girl to talk to?" As the boy walked off, the Mistral trio, who had heard that little exchange from behind, exchanged small glances at each other.

"Do either of you know who that is?" Pyrrha asked the other two.

Elliot shrugged, but Brooke spoke up. "I don't know who he is, but he was on the Vale ship. He vomited everywhere too, but that's about all I know."

"I see…" Pyrrha looked off in the direction of the boy, just before the three of them filed into the crowd not far away from the sisterly duo of Ruby and Yang.

Yang smiled at Ruby, who looked extremely annoyed. "How's your first day going, little sister?"

Ruby glared at Yang and crossed her arms. "You mean since you _ditched_ me and I _exploded_?"

"Yikes! Meltdown already?" Yang rose an eyebrow at the girl.

"No, I _literally_ exploded a hole in the front of the school! And there was some fire, and I think some ice…?" Ruby pondered for a moment.

"Are you being sarcastic?" Yang asked with a huge smile.

"I mean, she is your sister, Yang. I wouldn't be surprised if it runs in the family." Rocky spoke, reminding Ruby of the presence of the two others with them.

Yang jabbed her elbow in Rocky's general direction, but missed. Ruby rolled her eyes and ignored Rocky's comment. "I wish! I tripped over some luggage, and then she yelled at me, and then I sneezed, and then I _exploded_ , and then she yelled at me again, and I felt really, _really_ bad, and I just wanted her to stop yelling at me!"

"Easy there, Ruby. I'm sure it couldn't be _that_ bad." Violet placed a hand of comfort on the red-clad girl's shoulder.

" _YOU!_ " A voice bellowed behind Ruby, who jumped and hid behind her older sister. As Ruby sprang out of the way, it was revealed to the group that Weiss Schnee was the source of the voice.

"Oh, God, it's happening again!" Ruby whimpered.

"Oh my god, she really exploded…" Yang mumbled as Rocky and Violet exchanged glances of trying _extremely_ hard not to burst out into laughter.

Weiss shoved a pamphlet into Ruby's face. "The Schnee Dust Company is not responsible for any injuries or damages sustained while operating a Schnee Dust Company product. Although not mandatory, the Schnee Family highly encourages their customers to read and familiarize themselves with this easy to follow guide to Dust applications and practices in the field." The words came out of her mouth at such a fast rate, even the trio who had not seen Weiss today until this point were a bit stunned by everything that just occurred.

"I'm sorry, it was an accident…" Ruby whimpered once more.

"Oh, come on Weiss. Cut the girl a break. Accidents happen." Violet spoke up this time. Weiss's head snapped to the source of the voice, not realizing who else was in the group the youngest girl had been standing with.

"Violet Vince? You know this dunce?" Weiss's tone fell somewhere between shocked and appalled, and Yang was not happy about it.

"This _dunce_ happens to be my sister," Yang sneered at Weiss.

"Easy, now. It seems like we all just got off on the wrong foot here." Rocky stepped between the two girls.

"Exactly. And yes, Weiss, Ruby's sister Yang happens to be one of my best friends from Signal, along with Rocky here. Now, let's all just take a step back and look at the situation," Violet added.

"What happened was an accident, Ruby has apologized. Accidents happen. We should all just move on and try to be friends." Rocky suggested.

"What did you say your name was?" Weiss asked the punk boy, a bit disgusted at his appearance.

"I'm Rocky," the boy offered the heiress a small smile and a nod.

"What's your last name?" Weiss asked another question, eyebrow rising towards the boy, who was mildly panicking at the idea of his identity being revealed so fast.

In what felt like the biggest miracle of Rocky's life, the group's chat was interrupted by Professor Ozpin, the headmaster of Beacon Academy. _Thanks, Uncle Oz_.

"I'll… keep this brief. You have traveled here today in search of knowledge, to hone your craft and acquire new skills, and when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people. But I look amongst you, and all I see is wasted energy, in need of purpose, direction."

"That was nice while it lasted," Yang whispered to the group as other students around them whispered about the headmaster's last statement.

"Just give him a second. He'll bring it back," Rocky whispered back, earning him a confused glare from Weiss.

"You assume knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will prove that knowledge can only carry you so far. It is up to you to take the first step." Ozpin finished his speech with a small nod, stepping away so Professor Goodwitch could take his place.

"You will gather in the ballroom tonight; tomorrow, your initiation begins. Be ready. You are dismissed," Glynda said with a small nod. The students began to disperse around them.

"He seemed kind of… off," Yang commented with a scratch of her head.

"It's almost like he wasn't even there," Ruby added.

"That's just kind of him. You get used to it." Rocky shrugged, before remembering Weiss's question, who was still staring at him in disbelief.

"So, like I was asking…" Weiss looked at the boy.

Before she even had the chance to finish her question, Rocky interrupted her. "I, uh, have something I have to go do. Bye, see you guys later!" Turning on his heel, the punk disappeared into the crowd in a streak of green.

"Why won't he tell me his last name?" Weiss scowled at the remaining girls.

"You know, Weiss, not everyone likes to have their private lives broadcasted everywhere," Violet chided the white-haired girl.

"Says Violet Vince." Weiss scoffed.

"I don't pry in others' lives if they clearly don't want me to." Violet rebutted almost immediately.

"There is some _thick_ tension here and it would probably be best for us to all go and cool off." Yang was the one this time to step between the two girls.

"I'm out of here. See you around, Vince." Weiss glared at the purple-haired girl.

"You can bet your lucky dust on it." Violet gave a friendly smile back, determined to be a better person.

As Weiss wandered off into the crowd, Ruby turned to the two remaining girls. "What was that?"

"That, dear Ruby, is what happens when you grow up rich. Rivalries, very tense and unnecessary rivalries." Violet gave a small sigh and a shake of her head.

"Let's go see if we can find where Rocky ran off to," Yang said, wrapping an arm around each of the smaller girls' shoulders, just before the brawler whisked the other two girls away without giving them a chance to object.


	4. Chapter 2: On the Brink of Forever

**AN:**

I really don't like writing all this intro stuff, but I'm still trying to write it as best as I can. I can't wait until we get to the parts where I can take a lot more liberty on the holes in canon and some of the more detailed parts of the canon. I felt like it was fairly important to keep how things start fairly similar to how canon presents it, with little liberties taken for small conversations in-between. We should be done with all of this introduction stuff by the fourth chapter, as long as I can fit initiation into one chapter. We'll see how that goes when we get to it!

Thanks for the favorites, follows, and reviews. Keep them coming! Enjoy!

* * *

 **Chapter 2**

 **On the Brink of Forever**

The ballroom was packed to the brim with students, bustling about as they settled their sleeping bags and bed rolls in the somewhat organized mess of clusters of kids. Most students kept to the people they knew, even if they weren't really close friends. This remained true for the two groups of students that were not yet aware of each other.

The first group, the Mistral trio, was laid out in their pajamas in a line of three near one of the walls. The second group, the Signal kids, were laying in a square facing each other, just a few clusters of students over from the Mistral trio. While the two were only a few yards away from each other, they were almost entirely unaware of the others' existence.

The Mistral trio were busy making small talk. The three were discussing their favorite places in Mistral and memories that they had. Unfortunately, Brooke wasn't able to participate a whole lot in the conversation. She hadn't gotten out of the wood farm too often in her life, maybe just a couple times a year. However, when she was able to contribute, she was very excited to do so.

"What did you do when you went out into Mistral?" Pyrrha asked Brooke, after catching on to the fact that Brooke had not spoken for several minutes and was appearing downtrodden about the fact that she wasn't able to participate in their conversations about their favorite cafes and places Brooke had never been.

"Every once in a while, we'd go out in a truck to do a delivery. If I was bored and off duty, sometimes I'd go with my brother who was in charge of deliveries. I usually didn't leave the truck on those outings, but just getting out and able to ride around a bit was a nice change of scenery. Usually if I was actually going out to do something, it was one day a year, for the finals of the Mistral Tournament." The last two words out of Brooke's mouth resonated something in both of the warriors, Elliot appearing uncomfortable and Pyrrha glancing anxiously at Elliot from the corner of her eye. Brooke, however, apparently didn't notice.

"Unfortunately, like, 5 years ago, I hit the age my family considered old enough to start working full time, and I've had the day shift ever since. So, I haven't been able to go since I was like, 11. Since then, I haven't really like, gone out. Every once in a blue moon I'd tag along for shopping for groceries or something, but nothing memorable."

A sigh of relief flushed over both of the warriors' faces. Elliot, in a quick attempt to deter the conversation, threw a question towards Brooke. "You started working full time at age 12?"

Brooke nodded. "8 hours a day, 7 days a week. 8 to 4, for 5 straight years. A little bit more than 5 years, but then I got lucky. And now I'm here."

The trio was interrupted by yelling a little bit away from them. They looked up to see a group in a little bicker. The first person Brooke recognized was Weiss Schnee, who was busy yelling at the same girl who had fallen over her luggage earlier. A heavily muscled blonde was standing defensively next to the younger girl. The fourth, who seemed more annoyed than anything, was the girl with the black bow, who appeared to have been interrupted from reading a book. The final two in the group, a girl with long purple hair, and a punk boy with a green mohawk, were standing a few feet away from the rest of the group, and appeared to be attempting to stifle laugher at whatever had just conspired. Brooke remembered seeing most of them briefly on the ship to Vale, but knew nothing of the seemingly already close knit group of friends, minus the girl with the black bow and Weiss.

"Don't you realize some of us are trying to sleep?" Weiss, the only one in the group that Brooke recognized by name, cried out, absolutely waking up anyone who _may_ have been asleep.

Brooke groaned, opting to ignore the commotion going on over there. "I'm gonna try to get some rest before initiation tomorrow. Goodnight," Brooke said to her two new friends, who agreed to follow suit.

"Goodnight!" Pyrrha chimed with her friendly smile.

"'Night," Elliot gave a small nod to the two girls to his left.

Brooke rolled over, her back to the two warriors. A small smile formed across her face. It was her first day, and she'd already found a couple of friends to make this whole new world seem a little less scary. Closing her eyes, she prayed that whatever happened tomorrow, she would get half-decent teammates. The last thing she wanted, or needed, was for this to go sourly.

* * *

Once everyone woke up the following morning, emotions were running high. Some students dealt with it in the forms of nervousness, while others dealt with it through excitement. The two groups of emotions seemed to find themselves in each small group of students that had formed the night before. The Signal kids were certainly one of the groups split on this matter. Ruby and Yang seemed rather excited, while Violet and Rocky were more nervous about the situation.

"Jeez, could you fit more ammo in your belt, Vi?" Yang asked the purple-haired girl, who was jamming endless amounts of ammo into the clips on her belt.

"I don't know what we're going to be doing today, but I know how to observe." Violet's eyes glanced to Rocky, who had barely spoken all morning.

Growing up at Beacon, Rocky had often observed the initiation process with his mother. A fatherless boy, Rocky was either under the care of his mother, being babysat by the other professors, or even some of the older more responsible students. Once it became clear he was to become a huntsman and follow in his mother's footsteps, he was barred from watching any more initiations. But he never really forgot the gist of it. Sworn to secrecy on the matter, Rocky was not allowed to speak about any of the extra information he knew about the initiation process. However, no one could stop him from using his knowledge to make his own preparations, and no one could stop others from observing his actions and following suit. Violet, of course, knowing Rocky's knowledge since they first met years ago at Signal, was very careful to watch the silent boy's actions and copy them as they applied to her.

Rocky's main preparation for initiation had been stocking up on ammo. His special quiver, which held many different compartments for different types of dust infused arrows, was packed to the absolute brim. Violet, of course, copied this action, packing up as much ammo and as many different types of ammo as she possibly could. Yang picked up on this, also knowing Rocky's background. The blonde brawler didn't feel that the same actions were necessary for her, as she was primarily a boxer, and used far less ammo than the sniper and the crossbow punk.

Ruby, however, was as oblivious and innocent to information that the three older students held, as always. Before she could even ask a single question about what was going on, her attention was jolted by two students who had walked past them in the locker room. The taller of the two was a black-haired boy in a dark green outfit, and reminded Ruby of a ninja. The shorter was a ginger-haired girl who donned a pink combat skirt and a bizarre top that created a heart on her chest. The girl was extremely hyperactive, bouncing along as she talked to the boy, who seemed calm and used to the bouncing ball of energy beside him.

"Wonder what those two are so worked up about?" Ruby tilted her head.

"You're just amazed that there's someone at this school more hyper than you." Yang ruffled her younger sister's hair, to the girl's objections of pouting. "You know I'm kidding, Rubes."

"You both seem awfully chipper this morning," Violet commented, still nervously checking her ammo supplies and the states of her guns.

"Yep! No more awkward small talk or 'getting-to-know-you' stuff. Today, I get to let my sweetheart do the talking." Ruby was stroking the collapsed form of Crescent Rose, the name she used for her large scythe/gun.

"Well, Ruby, initiation isn't _just_ about fighting. Everyone knows that," Rocky offered his first comment all day as he strung his crossbow across his back in its harness.

Violet's head jerked up at the sound of his voice, shocked that not only he had spoken, but also mentioned something about initiation. While yes, the fact that _almost_ everyone knew this was true, Violet knew that students who didn't attend a basic combat school wouldn't have that important information. Ruby, having left Signal two years early, certainly had not yet obtained most of the common knowledge known about initiation.

Yang simply brushed off the fact that Rocky had broken his silence, offering a nod of agreement towards his statement. "If you wanna grow up, you're going to have to meet new people and learn to work together."

Ruby's face scrunched up into a pout, crossing her arms. "You sound like _Dad_." This comment caused Rocky to chuckle a little beneath his breath at the dynamic the two sisters produced. "What does meeting new people have to do with fighting? Also, I don't need people to help me grow up! I drink _milk_."

Both Rocky and Violet could not contain their laughter at that one, causing Ruby to become more annoyed at the trio. Yang, shockingly keeping her cool, tried to reason with Ruby about the situation.

"What about when we form teams?"

Yang's question caused Ruby to hesitate for a moment, her excited yet annoyed demeanor switching rapidly to nervous. "I… um… I don't know, I… I'll just be on your team or something," the red-clad girl stammered.

"Maybe," Yang drew out the _a_ in the word, "you should try being on someone else's team."

Giving her older sister a small smirk, in an attempt to hide her true level of nervousness, Ruby pointed an accusing finger at Yang. "My dear sister Yang, are you implying that you do not wish to be on the same team as me?"

"What? No! Of course I do! I just thought… I don't know, maybe it would help you… break out of your shell!" The blonde struggled to find the words she was looking for.

As the banter between the two sisters continued, Violet and Rocky simply looked at each other for a moment, before directing their attention back to their weapons. Violet slung her sniper rifle across her back and sighed, shaking her head at the two girls. Rocky, his weapon already strapped in place, watched as the two girls carried on back and forth, not noticing what was going on not too far away from the former Signal students.

* * *

The Mistral trio was not as split in emotions as the group from Signal. Pyrrha seemed to have attained an ability to hide her emotions over the years, but it was fairly clear that she was slightly nervous about what was to come, if not in her fighting ability, then in the social aspect of the formation of teams. Elliot seemed to hold himself with a constant air of fear and insecurity, despite his powerful fighting abilities. Brooke was very clearly nervous, her folded wolf ears twitching at even the slightest of noises, a telltale sign of fear in a Faunus. Brooke felt as if she had a million things to be nervous about, but this only heightened when Weiss Schnee showed her face.

As the trio was readying themselves at their lockers, Brooke discovered that they had unfortunately stashed their weapons in the lockers next to Weiss's the night before. Weiss's face seemed to light up when she saw Pyrrha, which the trio was still unsure if it was for better or for worse.

Weiss walked straight up to Pyrrha and held out her hand. "Weiss Schnee. It's nice to finally get to meet you!"

Pyrrha, too nice for her own good, gave the girl a handshake and a smile. "Pyrrha Nikos. I would be lying if I said I hadn't heard of you either."

Weiss didn't even ask for the names of the other two, to Brooke's temporary relief. Pyrrha was not fortunate enough to get the same relief, as Weiss instead asked her a question of which Pyrrha had been dreading being brought up.

"So, Pyrrha, have you given any thought to whose team you'd like to be on? I'm sure everyone must be eager to unite with such a strong, well-known individual such as yourself!" Weiss asked with an extremely fake smile.

Pyrrha had _really_ been dreading this moment. She thought it had come yesterday, when she noticed Brooke had been following her and Elliot. Brooke hadn't been like this though. Brooke wasn't looking to befriend Pyrrha and Elliot for their strength and reputation, but instead wanted to befriend them because she was from Mistral too. The wolf Faunus had seemed very anxious and alone, having gotten off of the Vale ship knowing absolutely no one. She wasn't the only one, but Pyrrha couldn't help but wonder a lot of things about the girl, like why she had come off the Vale ship if she was from Mistral, or why she had attained admittance to Beacon. Yet, Brooke seemed extremely nice, and Pyrrha made it a point to be nice to everyone she met.

Weiss wasn't like Brooke, however. Weiss, like so many others back at Sanctum, had been extremely blunt in their forthcomings. Weiss simply wanted Pyrrha's friendship for the power and prestige it held. Now Weiss probably wanted to be on a team with Pyrrha. While Pyrrha had never known the heiress personally, she had most certainly heard of Weiss Schnee and the Schnee family in general many times in her life, especially being a fighter at all the tournaments. Pyrrha had made it a point in recent years to never trust what the media said about anyone, after everything they'd done to Elliot, but still, she did not feel like she could entirely trust Wiess based on this small conversation alone.

"Hmm… I'm not quite sure. I was planning on letting the chips fall where they may." Pyrrha made a feeble attempt to get Weiss away with this question, although she still wanted to maintain an air of niceness.

"Well… I was thinking maybe we could be on a team together!" Weiss offered another small smile at the warrior, which still seemed very forced.

"Well, that sounds grand!" Pyrrha chose her words carefully. Not a yes, not a no. She still planned on letting destiny take its course, despite the heiress.

"Great!" Weiss exclaimed, a seemingly more genuine smile forming across her face.

Elliot and Brooke exchanged glances. Although they had not known each other for long, it was clear that they were on the same page about the situation. They were both annoyed and slightly amused at the heiress's forced attempts at social interaction, and especially annoyed at how blunt she was being. She had acted like the two of them weren't even there! Since both of them knew the Schnee family's record with Faunus, they were not surprised by her lack of attention to Brooke, who was slightly preferring the cold shoulder over racist remarks. Elliot, alone in this thought, believed that Weiss wouldn't want to talk to someone like him, especially if she believed everything that had happened with the media in the past few years.

A tall, blonde boy, who appeared scragglier than Elliot, slipped between the heiress and the champion. Brooke instantly recognized him as the boy who had vomited on the Vale airship.

"You know what else is great? Me. Jaune Arc. Nice to meet you." The boy leaned his arm up against one of the lockers, trying to be smooth with his words and actions.

Weiss glared at the boy, but Pyrrha remained as friendly as always. "Nice to meet you, Jaune!" the warrior said with a smile, but the boy ignored her, obviously focused on Weiss.

"Yeah, yeah. So, Weiss, I've been hearing rumors about teams! I would think you and I would make a good one! What do you say?" Jaune asked the heiress, who simply groaned in response.

"Actually, I think the teams are comprised of four students each, so-," Pyrrha attempted to interject Jaune's fairly awkward attempts at getting with Weiss, but he was quick on his feet when it came to awkward flirting.

"You don't say." Jaune turned towards Pyrrha with a smile. "Well, hot stuff, play your cards right, and maybe you could join up with the winning team. I don't think there's enough room for your two friends over there, unfortunately." Jaune glanced over at Brooke and Elliot.

Brooke looked at Elliot. "Woah, dude, we exist, here, in this room, right now! Someone who joined in on a _group conversation_ actually acknowledged the whole group!"

Elliot quickly caught onto Brooke's sarcasm, giving a smirk as he added on his own tone of sarcasm. "It's just _wonderful_. You wouldn't believe this, but my semblance turns me into wallpaper when people enter a room. Most people just don't notice. Jaune must have some crazy night vision or something."

"You hiding a tail in those pants, or are you just that good?" Brooke couldn't contain it anymore, even at her own joke. The wolf Faunus and the swordfighter burst out laughing, unable to control themselves. Their humor clicked together well.

Weiss's face flushed red, finally noticing that the other two had been right there the whole time. Of _course_ she recognized Elliot. Who wouldn't, after the media circus? The wolf Faunus was foreign to her, and she quickly turned away, in an attempt to hide the fact that she had just ignored Pyrrha's friends. Turning her embarrassment into annoyance at Jaune, she shook her head at him, stepping between him and Pyrrha. "Jaune, is it? Do you have any idea who you're talking to?"

Dread filled Pyrrha's heart, as well as Elliot's. Brooke also knew exactly what was about to happen. Brooke might not have been the _most_ socially inept student on campus, but she knew better than to bring the tournaments up with Pyrrha and Elliot in context.

"Not in the slightest, snow angel." Jaune gave a small shrug.

 _Dear god. He's got to get a lesson in flirting._ Brooke felt another urge to burst out laughing, but given the tone of the situation set by Pyrrha and Elliot, she decided the action was inappropriate.

" _This_ is Pyrrha." Weiss pointed at the girl, who gave a small wave and offered another hello with a kind smile. "Pyrrha graduated top of her class at Sanctum!"

 _It's starting._ Elliot could feel his stomach clenching up.

"Never heard of it." Jaune offered another shrug in an attempt to keep cool.

Elliot and Pyrrha exchanged a small, silent glance beneath the notice of Weiss and Jaune. Could they actually avoid this?

Weiss scoffed. "She's won the Mistral Region Tournaments four years in a row! A new record!"

Elliot could feel his stomach twisting up, all hope of avoiding this topic long gone.

"The what?" Jaune rose an eyebrow.

 _This kid needs a class in flirting and pop culture_. Brooke couldn't believe her ears, even though all four of them never lied to her.

Weiss's face scrunched up, angry at the boy. In an attempt to get down to his obviously inferior level, she chose what Pyrrha was probably the least well known for. "She's on the front of every Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes box!"

Jaune let out a quick gasp. "That's _you_?! But they only do that for star athletes and cartoon characters!"

The Faunus and the swordsman exchanged glances again. This _couldn't_ be happening. Was this kid for real?

"Yeah, it was pretty cool. Sadly, the cereal isn't very good for you." Pyrrha, as always, remained cool in the situation. Slightly amused at the boy's ignorance, and slightly grateful for it, Pyrrha made a mental note that Jaune Arc would be a good person to befriend.

"So, after hearing all of this, do you really think you're in a position to ask _her_ to be on your team?" Weiss glared at Jaune, who hung his head in response.

"I guess not… Sorry…" the boy muttered.

Pyrrha placed a hand on his shoulder, unhappy with the way Weiss had handled the situation. She didn't want to live in a world where the only people she associated with were people who also assumed themselves to be of equal power as her. It just felt wrong. "Actually, Jaune, I think you'd make a great leader!"

Jaune blushed a little bit, obviously taken aback by Pyrrha's kinder words. The heiress was about to protest once again, when luckily for pretty much everyone, an announcement broke out over the loudspeaker.

"Would all first-year students please report to Beacon Cliff for initiation? Again, all first-year students report to Beacon Cliff immediately." The all too familiar voice of Glynda Goodwitch rang through the large locker room.

"The three of us are going to head off then. It was nice meeting you two," Pyrrha offered a small smile to both Weiss and Jaune, before quickly darting off to walk between Brooke and Elliot as they made their way to the cliff. Weiss headed off in another direction before Jaune could even get out another word.

Jaune slumped against one of the lockers for a moment, sitting down briefly to think about what had happened. "Likewise," he called after Pyrrha.

Jaune did not notice Yang, Ruby, Violet, and Rocky having listened in on that entire conversation. As they approached, he looked up to see Yang holding out her hand for him to use to get himself up. "Having some trouble there, lady-killer?" Yang asked with a smirk.

"I don't understand," Jaune took the hand to stand up. "My dad said all women look for is confidence. Where did I go wrong?"

"You know, "Snow Angel" probably wasn't the best start." Yang offered a small smile.

"Names usually work the best." Violet chuckled as she flipped her hair over her shoulder, covering part of her sniper rifle.

"Come on, Jaune, let's go. We can sort out the girl troubles later," Ruby said with a jerk of her head towards the door.

* * *

The cliff, covered in a row of silver tiles, was easy enough to find for all of the students. Once everyone had assumed their positions on their tiles, and attendance had been accounted for, Professor Ozpin and Professor Goodwitch began their speech that would begin the students' initiation into Beacon Academy.

"For years, you have trained to become warriors, and today, your abilities will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest." Ozpin took a sip from his coffee mug.

"Many of you have heard rumors about the assignment of "teams". Allow us to put an end to your confusion. Each of you will be given teammates… today." Professor Goodwitch gave a small glare over the top of her glasses as she scanned the line of students, watching as a few of them shifted in discomfort.

"These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon. It is in your best interest to be paired with someone with whom you can work well. That being said, the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years," Ozpin carried on his speech, pausing to take another sip from his seemingly endless coffee mug.

There were brief expressions of more discomfort among the students. Ruby had gasped, Brooke's ears had dropped, Jaune looked mortified, and Elliot glanced worryingly at Pyrrha. The others all seemed prepared for this news, and ready to take on whatever was to come.

Ozpin lowered the coffee cup from his mouth once more. "After you've partnered up, make your way to the northern end of the forest. You will meet opposition along the way. Do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path… or you _will_ die. You will be monitored and graded throughout the duration of your initiation, but our instructors will not intervene. You will find an abandoned temple at the end of the path containing several relics. Each pair must choose one and return to the top of the cliff. You will guard that item, as well as your standing, and grade you appropriately. Now, take your positions."

The row of students crouched down, ready for what was to come. Nora crouched low while Ren wielded his weapons. Yang rose her fists while flashing on sunglasses, ready to fight whatever came across her. Ruby prepared her stance, keeping it simple until she got into the air. Rocky crouched on the platform, Violet carefully following his lead. Pyrrha and Elliot adjusted their stances, not fazed by what they had just been told. Brooke was smiling, beyond overjoyed that initiation was happening in a _forest_. Jaune was the only one unprepared, unsure of what to do.

One by one, they were sent off the cliff side, flying through the air and over the forest. Ozpin watched as the students flew over the forest in various positions, sipping away at his coffee.

Glynda held up her scroll, looking at the data it was giving her. "It's going to be an interesting year. I can tell already."


	5. Chapter 3: Tress and Teammates

**AN:**

Holy shit, this chapter is long. You know, if I could pump out papers like I could pump out these chapters, I'd be set as a college student. What should I have been doing for four hours yesterday? Working on several papers. What did I do? Write nearly a nearly 6,000 word chapter for this fic.

Anyways, do enjoy this behemoth of a chapter! Not all of them will be this long, I imagine shooting somewhere between 4,000-5,000 for each chapter from here on out, unless something is really big, like this one.

* * *

 **Chapter 3**

 **Teams and Trees**

Brooke Timber knew a _lot_ about forests. If she knew any information about anything, she knew about forests. She knew how to navigate them, how to find a safe tree to climb, and how to cut down a tree. She even knew how to fight Grimm using the forest to her advantage. What she _didn't_ know, however, was how to exactly land in a forest while flying into it from the sky.

Brooke did not have a lot of time to formulate a plan while she flew through the air. Her weapon wouldn't be much help. The sharp blades of her axe were excellent for cutting through things, but not slowing her down. She wouldn't land successfully with just her body. Even with her aura, she would probably die on impact if she aimed for the ground. So, instead, she aimed for what she knew how to navigate: the trees.

Brooke's ears were flattened against her head in an attempt to keep the wind out of her sensitive ears. Arms out and hands open as she reached for the trees she was flying towards, she braced herself for the impact of all the leaves and branches.

Brooke broke through the canopy of the forest with easy, doing her best to dodge as many of the branches as she could. Grabbing the strongest branch she could find, she spun around it until her body slowed down from the intense velocity it had been flying out at. Spinning around the large branch once more, the wolf Faunus landed firmly on the top of the branch. Taking in her surroundings, the girl looked around very carefully for signs of nearby Grimm. A surefire expert on tracking Grimm in the forest, even though the Emerald Forest had significantly more brush than the wood farm she grew up on, Brooke determined she was safe for now. Carefully navigating the tree, looking for strong branches for her to leap to, Brooke ended up a solid ten feet in the air on the lowest branch that would hold her weight.

Brooke pulled her hand-axe from the belt that held it at her waist. As it transformed into full form, Brooke looked down, ready to jump onto the ground. With a leap with her extended double-bladed axe, Brooke pointed her weapon downwards, allowing one of the blades of the axe to soften the blow and allowing her to gracefully leap from branch to axe to ground.

Pulling the axe from the soil, Brooke looked around carefully once more. She began the trek to the northern end of the forest, aiming to find the relics that Ozpin had mentioned, as well as a person to call her partner.

* * *

Rocky Goodwitch was _so_ ready for this day. He'd been practicing his landing strategy since he'd first seen an initiation when he was five years old. He'd even _designed_ special arrows to help him not only in this feat, but in any other possible situations that these special arrows were necessary.

Rocky's crossbow was in his hands as he was flying through the air, a single arrow pre-loaded. Attached to the arrow, and the crossbow, was an extremely powerful steel wire designed to aid the punk through his landing. _Am I cheating? Maybe. But I'd be stupid not to prepare something for this._

Body tucked in a close ball, Rocky flew towards the canopy of the trees. As he approached a large tree at top speed, he fired his crossbow, aiming directly for a strong branch. His body increased velocity as the strong wire pulled the crossbow along with the arrow. Rocky narrowed his eyes, bracing himself for the impact of the arrow on the branch.

The arrow sliced into the branch, the wire stiffening as it swung Rocky and his crossbow like a pendulum under the branch. Sighing with relief, Rocky looked down at his position. He was only about five feet in the air from his feet, but the branch he was attached to hung about fifteen feet above the ground. Observing the area around him, Rocky decided it would be safe to get down without his crossbow first. Pushing himself forward with his crossbow, gaining a bit more of swinging momentum, Rocky released his grip on the crossbow, landing on the ground with the roll of his body just a few feet away from his crossbow. Reaching up for the wire, Rocky tugged hard, in an attempt to free the arrow from the branch. Instead of just the arrow, the entire branch came crashing down. If Rocky had not quickly rolled out of the way again, it would have landed directly on top of him.

Rocky sighed and looked at the arrow stuck firmly in the branch. "That is one _strong_ wire," Rocky said to himself while shaking his head, grabbing the actual arrow and yanking it from the branch. Unloading the wired connection to the crossbow, Rocky carefully tucked the wired bow back into his quiver. He then carefully selected and loaded a normal arrow into his crossbow, before heading North very carefully, ready to fight whatever came his way.

* * *

Violet Vince was an expert in weaponry. How they were made, how they could be used, the engineering and dynamics used to create powerful weapons, she knew it all. Her specialty within this specialty, of course, was guns. When Ozpin had launched her over the forest, Violet had zero problem immediately coming up with her landing strategy.

Violet soared through the air above the trees, two pistols in hand. Pointed behind her, Violet used the first few shots to propel herself forwards more, aiming to find a good spot to land. Her eyes carefully running along the cracks in the trees, she zeroed in on a spot that would be ideal for her to charge into.

Violet swung her arms forward, the force of the air setting her off balance a bit. Determined, she shot a few shots out of her pistols to apply pressure backwards onto her body. The force of the weapons slowed her down enough to land on a tree trunk. Her feet slamming into the trunk, she bounced backwards with ease, completing a backflip onto the trunk of another tree. Pushing off with her feet once more, she continued the bouncing zig-zag between the two trees until she reached the ground.

Quickly reloading her pistols, Violet crept forward, an eerie and uneasy feeling striking through the forest. Pistols at the ready, Violet scanned her area quickly, feeling like she was ready for whatever was to come at her next.

* * *

Elliot Lukas took no chances with anything other than his swords to assist him in the landing. He was so used to his swords that they were nothing more than an extension of his arms to him, making his landing strategy clear from the get-go.

Elliot soar through the air with his arms tucked to his sides, swords in hand, to attain as much velocity as possible at first. Once he decided he had gone far enough, he brought his swords forward, creating an X in front of him. Tucking his feet forward to make his stance as wide as possible and to create as much friction as he could, his velocity slowly lowered.

Elliot pulled his body back out into a fully stretched position, raising his arms above his head, turning himself into a pointed drill. Searing through the leaves, Elliot moved his defensive sword above his head and blocked branches attempting to slice him as he barreled towards the ground.

Elliot's feet hit a trunk with a thud, and he bounced backwards, his swords above his head once again. Stabbing them into another tree, he stopped his movement, but noticed he was hanging significantly high up in the air, at least twenty-five feet.

Elliot looked around and scowled. Removing his offensive sword, he stabbed the tree a bit lower, moving his body down some. He repeated this process with his defensive sword, and then his offensive swords, and then his defensive sword once more. Climbing down the tree with his double sword tactic, he heard a voice from below when he was about ten feet above the ground.

"Hello there!" a girl called out, the voice of which Elliot did not recognize. Confused for a moment, as the only person he had ever say "hello there" was Pyrrha, he twisted his body to look at the ground beneath him.

A shorter girl with long purple hair, a rifle slung over her back, and one pistol out while the other was clipped to her belt, smiled at him. Her dark purple eyes met his light blue eyes, locking them in as partners.

Elliot smiled back at the girl. "Hello!"

"You could probably jump from there and be fine," the girl commented with a shrug, pointing her free hand at the brush below him. "That'll certainly break your fall."

Elliot nodded, and adjusted his grip on his swords. Tugging them both out at full force, he allowed his body to fall backwards, landing into the bush below him.

The blonde boy stood up, dusting himself off and tucking away his swords for a moment. He approached the purple haired girl and held out a hand. "Elliot Lukas. It's nice to meet you."

"Violet Vince. I admire the double sword method. I'm a bit of a dual wielder myself," the purple haired girl took his handshake with her free hand, but gestured towards the other pistol in her belt.

"It's kind of my specialty." Elliot let out a grin. "Do you know which way North is from here?"

Violet gave a small nod. "I was headed that way when I heard a bunch of stabbing. I assumed someone was fighting a Grimm, not a tree. I haven't run into any Grimm yet, though, for some reason."

"They've gotta be around here somewhere…" Elliot's eyes lowered, his swords drawn once more. "Let's get going."

With a nod in response from his new partner, the two began their trek back towards the Northern end of the forest.

* * *

Brooke was making her way carefully through the forest when she heard a low growling coming from the brush to her right. Her axe already fully extended, she crouched, ears up, eyes trained, body ready. Brooke hated the feeling of being hunted and stalked. Perhaps it was the wolf in her, the natural predator, but she felt nothing but hatred towards whatever was watching her.

Low growling meant Grimm. Ears twitching, nose searching. _Beowolf? Ursa? What's there?_ Brooke's mind raced with possibilities. _Why isn't it coming out? I'm not diving in blind._

As if on cue, a pack of Beowolves flung themselves out of the brush. They came from not just the brush she had been watching, but from all around her. Brooke counted seven in total. Letting out a low growl of her own, Brooke couldn't believe her own stupidity. _Of course, Beowolves travel in packs. Could I really forget something so basic?_

Brooke shook her head slightly, clearing her mind. Bringing her axe up, she swung around in a large circle, pushing away the pack for just a few seconds. That's all Brooke ever really needed. A few seconds, to get herself in order.

With a quick twist of her wrist, Brooke leaped forwards, slicing the head clean off one of the Beowolves. The few seconds had given her that chance, but she did not have much time to make any more choices. A Beowolf was striking the air above her. She shoved her axe up, in an attempt to stop the beast, knowing she would certainly get hurt, as she had no time for a proper defensive mechanism. Yet, the beast gave a cry out in pain as it collapsed. Around her, several more of the Beowolves fell over, dead. Brooke looked at them in confusion. Arrows stuck out from the back of their heads, in a fatal location. Instant death.

Brooke took the opportunity to slice the head off of another two Beowolves. Looking around herself for more targets, she saw one final Beowolf charging at her. She spun her axe around, ready to swiftly behead the beast, but it dropped dead before it could reach her. As it fell, a boy dropped from a tree nearby. Wielding a crossbow and rocking a lime green mohawk, the boy stuck his hand out.

"Rocky Goodwitch, at your service."

"Brooke Timber." Brooke let out a smile as she took his hand. "You're a damn good shot."

"Some have called me the best crossbow wielder in all of Vale," Rocky smirked at the wolf Faunus.

Brooke shook her head and started walking towards the Northern end of the forest, Rocky following at her side. "Alright, Mr. Hot Stuff. You said Goodwitch. Are you-?" Brooke asked, but Rocky quickly cut her off.

"Yeah, I'm Professor Goodwitch's son. No, I don't get special treatment. Yes, I have to call her Professor while I'm a student here. No, I didn't cheat my way into the school. I fought my way through basic combat school, like everyone else." Rocky rattled off the questions he anticipated, trying to get it out of the way.

"I didn't go to combat school," Brooke said softly.

Rocky rose an eyebrow. "You didn't? Your fighting is _really_ refined. You could have fooled me easily."

Brooke shook her head. "I passed the test to get in."

"Well, then I fought my way through basic combat school, like a lot of people here. I shouldn't have worded it like that, my bad."

"It's all good, not like you'd know my life story with a single glance." Brooke gave a small shrug in response.

"Where are you from?" Rocky asked, trying to turn the conversation away from his blunder.

"Mistral. I assume you're from Vale, given your family."

"Yeah, I pretty much grew up at Beacon. I went to Signal for basic combat school. And now I'm back here, yet again." Rocky let out a slight chuckle.

"Who declared you the best crossbow wielder in Vale?" Brooke rose an eyebrow at the punk kid. His outfit was still astounding to the girl, between his lime green mohawk and his studded leather jacket. Brooke had only ever seen Professor Goodwitch from afar, and she seemed far too stern to let her own sun pierce his eyebrow, dye his hair, and dress like such a punk.

"Both the teachers at Signal and Uncle Oz himself."

"Uncle Oz?" Brooke chuckled slightly, imagining the old headmaster as a hip, young uncle.

"Uh, Professor Ozpin. I grew up calling all the professors here 'aunt' and 'uncle'. I've been trying to adjust, but after 17 years of considering them family members, it's hard to adjust to 'teacher mode'," Rocky explained, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment.

The pair stumbled upon a large clearing, the center of which contained the ruins of some old temple of sorts. "You think that's it?" Brooke asked, looking at her new partner.

Rocky nodded. "I'm sure of it."

As the pair emerged into the clearing, they noticed another pair emerging into the clearing as well. Violet Vince and Elliot Lukas had found their way to the ruins to collect their relic.

Rocky's face lit up with a smile. "Hey Vi!" he called out across the clearing with a wave.

Violet looked at Elliot and gestured for him to come with. The two ran towards the other pair, who had started jogging towards them as well.

"Elliot!" Brooke called out with a smile and a wave once she noticed who he was.

"You two know each other?" Rocky asked as they jogged across the clearing.

Brooke nodded, but hesitated. "Well, we just met yesterday. But we're both from Mistral, so I was hanging around with him and Pyrrha Nikos yesterday and this morning."

Rocky gave a small nod in response as the two pairs met up in the middle of the clearing.

"Glad to see you made it out alive," Violet said to Rocky with a smirk as she placed a hand on her hips.

Rocky laughed slightly. "Please, Vi. You know you've got more faith in me than that."

"Violet Vince," the purple haired girl smiled as she held out a hand to Brooke.

"Brooke Timber," Brooke smiled back at Violet.

Elliot and Rocky were exchanging a similar introduction, the pair of boys sharing a firm handshake. Rocky glanced over at the ruins not too far away from them. "We should get going," the punk boy said with a nod.

The other three nodded in response at the boy, the group taking off in the direction of the ruins. As they made their way onto the floor of the ruins, Rocky placed a hand in front of Brooke, looking to stop her motion. Brooke glanced up at Rocky, cocking an eyebrow in confusion. "Let them go first," Rocky gestured to the other two, who had not noticed that Rocky and Brooke had stop.

Brooke watched carefully, her eyes tracking the movements of the two students. Surrounding the ruins was a ring of small pillars, each topped with singular chess pieces. Brooke observed carefully, noticing there was two of each piece. None of them had been taken yet, signifying that they were the first to arrive. Violet stopped, picking up a white Bishop. Glancing over her shoulder, she noticed Rocky and Brooke, Rocky standing there with his hand still hovering in front of Brooke's chest.

"Why?" Violet asked, her eyebrow raising in the same confusion on Brooke's face.

"No reason." Rocky gave a shrug as he strode forwards, grabbing the other white bishop.

"This is one of your 'don't ask questions, just trust me' moments, huh?" Violet chuckled slightly.

"You got it, Vi." Rocky chuckled slightly.

"So, the cliff?" Elliot asked, gesturing in the direction they were meant to go.

Rocky tucked the bishop into his quiver, as Violet tucked hers into one of the clips on her belt. Brooke studied the cliff carefully, glancing at the wide gap they had yet to pass in order to get back up to the top.

"I'm a bit worried. This seemed a bit _too_ easy." Violet shook her head slightly, her eyes carefully scanning the path ahead of them.

"It's not meant to be terribly hard. We _have_ been fairly lucky, though." Rocky sighed, offering another rare bit of input about the initiation process.

"Let's just try. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for anything that seems out of place." Brooke gave the others a small nod.

* * *

The four continued onwards towards the cliff where they would finish their initiation process. There was a short path through the woods before they would approach the great ruins that stood between them and the tall cliff. Brooke was watching and listening carefully, all four of her ears working overtime, just as if she was on a hunt for a Grimm in the woods back at home. Rocky noticed the girl's paranoia, which was almost rivaled by the paranoia of Elliot, who was walking as if he was crouched very close to the ground, his swords drawn as his eyes rapidly scanning the brush as they walked past. Rocky gasped for a moment as he noticed something about Elliot, but quickly covered his mouth, trying to hide the noise he just made.

"What's wrong?" Brooke snapped to look at her new partner.

"Um, nothing." Rocky quickly attempted to cover it up again.

Elliot looked up at Rocky, a pair of cross-eyes coming back into a normal glance. "No, tell us."

Rocky's face flushed bright red, looking down at the ground. As Rocky was stammering, struggling to come up with words, Elliot put two and two together.

"It's my semblance. Don't worry about it." Elliot blushed a bit himself, as Rocky looked back up at him. Brooke and Violet looked at the two boys in wild confusion, and then each other.

Elliot made his eyes do it again, showing the three others. "I can focus on two things at once and cross and uncross my eyes at will. Helps in battle and all, it's why I dual wield."

"Sorry, that was really rude of me. I just got really confused." Rocky blushed once more, staring at the ground. Violet smirked at the big punk, giving him a playful punch to the arm. Rocky shot her a glare, some sort of silent conversation going on between the two old friends.

"It's all good." Elliot let out a small chuckle, his eyes uncrossing. "I'm used to it at this point. At least you didn't yell out 'Cross eyes!' or something crazy. Trust me, I've gotten it. Even in the heat of battle."

"Well, that's just dumb and rude. Good to know, though." Violet gave a small nod to her new partner.

"I'm no stranger to rude. Let's keep going though." Elliot pushed his light blonde hair back, walking forward for just a single step, before a low growl emitted from a bush.

The group stopped dead, standing in a small square with their backs to each other.

"I knew this was too easy," Violet muttered, her eyes narrowing.

"Shush, I'm trying to track them," Brooke hissed slightly, her floppy ears twitching into various directions as she attempted to hone in on where the growl had come from. Now surrounded by the eerie silence of the forest, she was relying on the smallest sounds to hone in on whatever Grimm were out there.

Rocky had his crossbow loaded and aimed, carefully scanning the brush around him. A single bush rustled ever so slightly, and Rocky fired. The arrow whipped through the air, a roar of pain coming from a Grimm.

"Ursa!" Brooke called out before the beast even emerged from the large brush, determining the type of Grimm by the roar.

Violet fired two bullets into the bush as a large Ursa emerged. The sharpshooter scowled at the sight of it. An Ursa Major, since nothing could be easy.

Brooke groaned as she saw the thing. All she could think of was the day in the woods when Qrow had seen her. Ozpin had to have planned this somehow. There was _no way_ that sheer luck had led her to fighting an Ursa Major to get into this school and to also prove herself in the initiation process.

The huge bear Grimm had an arrow emerging from his shoulder, but was pawing at it, trying to get it away. The few extra seconds of distraction gave Brooke time to formulate a plan.

"I've fought a ton of these guys before. We can-," Brooke was cut off by the roar of the Ursa Major. Not far away, the roar was echoed by several other Ursas. Brooke groaned. A pack. "Okay, second thought. Rocky, Violet, get to the trees, climb up however you can, at least above the range of the Ursa swipes. I've heard great things about your accuracy, get those vital spots. Behind the neck is the best spot on Ursas. Elliot, you and I will run distraction. If you can get slashes in, do it, but don't go for anything crazy. With multiple Ursas, focusing too much on one can give them a chance be overpowering. Let the shot cover take care of it."

The Ursa Major had removed the arrow from its shoulder. "GO!" Brooke yelled, charging forward with her axe to give the ranged fighters time to get to the trees. Elliot followed suit, swords out, charging forth with both swords pointed forward, ready to stab the Major as much as he could before the backup arrived.

Rocky quickly tossed his crossbow across his back and climbed the nearest tree. His sheer strength allowed him to quickly scale the tree and hold himself up until he could find a strong branch. Violet dashed across to the other side of the tiny clearing, leaping up into a tree and bouncing up in-between two close tree trunks. Grabbing onto a strong branch, Violet used her smaller figure to flip herself up and perch herself in an ideal sniping spot. Quickly yanking her sniper rifle off her back, she nodded at Rocky from across the clearing before looking into the scope, going into her mentality of sniper mode.

Brooke and Elliot were quick footed as they dashed around the Ursa Major. The backup that the Major had called for was arriving, roaring as four Ursas ripped through the bushes. Giving Elliot a quick glance over her shoulder, she gave the cross-eyed warrior a small nod. The two charged off in different directions, dashing around the various Ursas, trying to keep their attention off of the sniper and arrow fire coming from the sky.

Brooke rarely stayed in place for longer than a second. Her movements were precise yet swift, leaping around as she swung her axe very precisely, and made tiny adjustments to block swipes from the various paws swiping at her. With a dash and a roll away from yet another swipe, she watched as two precisely hit bullets led one of the Ursas to collapse, dead on the ground only a foot away from Brooke. She glanced up and gave Violet a smirk, who was buried in her scope still. Flopping a thumbs-up at the wolf Faunus, Violet trained her scope on the next Ursa.

Elliot was busy running around in circles around the Ursa, paying particular attention to the Ursa Major. Weaving through them, he kept his defensive sword working at constant pace, quickly whipping around as the Ursa attempted to do damage to the boy of light. Naturally, the boy's split attention was working effortlessly to keep him safe with the intercepting jabs and pushes from the wide defensive sword. His offensive sword was working at the same level of focus and dedication, his right eye carefully selecting weak points in the Ursas' armor. With the boy's semblance and his swords working effortlessly together, he faced no issues as he danced around the Grimm, who were getting increasingly frustrated with the baiting tactics.

Elliot was dancing around an Ursa, pushing back a swipe with his defensive sword as he dashed around to another Ursa. There was a large crack of electricity and a roar of pain as the Ursa he had just pushed back slammed to the ground behind him. Whipping around halfway and watching carefully with his right eye as he pushed away the next Ursa with his defensive sword in his left hand, he saw an arrow sticking out of the back of the neck of the Ursa, appearing to be infused with electric dust. He gave Rocky a small nod and smirk, before spinning around and stabbing the Ursa in the chest with his offensive sword. Elliot removed his two swords and rolled out of the way as the Ursa turned, his back to Rocky's position. Elliot rolled once more, watching as the next Ursa fell to another electric arrow.

Violet was watching very carefully through her scope for the perfect shot. Brooke was doing an excellent job of dancing about the Ursa, but it was harder for her to position the back of the Ursa to Violet's vantage point. Brooke recognized this, running backwards as she nearly slammed into Elliot.

"Switch!" Brooke called out to Elliot, who ducked low to the ground. Brooke completed, in Violet's opinion, an extremely unnecessary backflip over Elliot.

Violet rolled her eyes behind the scope. She hated people who were unnecessarily flashy. Get in, kill the Grimm, get out. That was her motto. She watched carefully through the scope as Brooke was spinning her huge, heavy axe in her hands. _Really?_

"When I say jump, jump!" Brooke called to Elliot, her axe still spinning.

"What? Why?" Elliot slashed at another Ursa, attempting to spin the back to Violet, but was having difficulty.

"Just do it!" Brooke yelled, still spinning. "One, two, three, jump!"

The two melee fighters leaped into the air at the same time, while Brooke slammed the base of her axe into the ground. The ground beneath them shook, sending tremors around them in about a fifty-foot radius. The Ursas stumbled, dazed and confused. By landing back on the ground after the tremors had left the ground directly beneath them, Brooke and Elliot remained unaffected by the tremors sent out by the heavy axe. Two more bullets from a smirking Violet through the back of an Ursa's neck sent the third corpse falling to the ground.

 _Flashy, yet useful. I like her style._ Violet continued smirking to herself, no one else able to see behind the large sniper rifle.

There were two Grimm left, a single Ursa and the Ursa Major. "Full focus on the Major! I've got the other one!" Brooke called out, leaping into the air as she spun sideways, slamming the axe into the arm of the Ursa, who screamed out in pain.

Violet adjusted her scope on the Major. The armor on the Ursa Major was larger, spiked, and spread out along more of the Grimm. Deciding to weaken the Major, she searched for brinks in the armor, zeroing in as close as she could on the Ursa Major. Firing a few shots from her sniper rifle, the Ursa Major called out in pain as bullets tore through the legs of the beast. Collapsing to the ground on its knees, Elliot flipped around in the air as he sliced the arm of the slightly less mighty bear Grimm.

Brooke slammed her axe into the smaller Ursa once more. The beast cried out in pain yet again. Removing the axe, Brooke growled at the Ursa. The bear Grimm reciprocated with its own low growl. Creeping low to the ground, Brooke's ears were arched as she circled around the beast. The Ursa attempted to strike, swiping the large paw towards Brooke. She rolled out of the way, pushing up and leaping into the air at the last moment. Spinning through the air, Brooke slammed her axe into the neck of the Ursa, making a clean cut straight through the neck as the head fell to the ground. A smirk filling in on Brooke's face, she landed and turned to look at what was left of the Ursa Major as the headless corpse of the smaller Ursa fell to the ground behind her.

Brooke watched as an arrow and several more bullets flew through the air at the same time, striking the Ursa Major in the neck from different perspectives. The huge beast fell to the ground, creating a slight tremor as it hit the floor. Crying out in pain and slight pity, not quite yet dead. Elliot slammed his blade down upon the neck, slicing the head clean through.

Taking a moment to catch their breath, the four students looked around at each other.

"Well," Elliot said in-between gasps. "That happened."

Brooke smiled at the three as the two ranged fighters leaped down from the trees. "That was amazing!"

Violet smirked at the excited Faunus. "You ever fought on a team before?" Brooke shook her head in response.

"Those were some pretty good plans there for someone who's never fought alongside other people. That was pretty much flawless." Rocky gave his new partner a pat on the back, who blushed with embarrassment from the compliments.

"Let's get out of here before anything else jumps us." Elliot jabbed his thumb towards the cliff once again.

"I was just getting started!" Violet gave another smirk as she slung her sniper rifle back over her shoulder.

"He's right," Rocky said with a nod, as the four began the trek back to the top of the cliff, feeling great about the fight they just had.

"I'd never seen that many Ursa at once before. Packs of Beowolves, yeah, but only ever one Ursa at a time." Brooke shook her head slightly.

"They keep this forest stocked with very diverse amounts of Grimm for initiation and training. They're meant to simulate the deep wildlands of Remnant," Rocky explained with a shrug.

"Let's get out of here then. I doubt this will be our last time out in these woods." Brooke said with a nod, as the four students broke free of the forest, heading for a path up the cliff that Rocky pointed out to them.

* * *

The auditorium was filled with older students while the first years stood next to the large stage in small groups of four. It had not taken long for Brooke, Violet, and Elliot to realize what Rocky's actions at the ruins had done, as the four had been situated together in line. One by one, Ozpin called out the names of the students, as well as the team names and the team leaders.

"Russel Thrush, Cardin Winchester, Dove Bronzewing, Sky Lark. The four of you retrieved the black bishop pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team CRDL, led by Cardin Winchester."

There was a polite round of applause. Up next was the white bishop pieces. The four strode onto the stage as Ozpin called out their names.

"Richard Goodwitch, Elliot Lukas, Brooke Timber, Violet Vince. From this day forward, you will work together as Team BRVE, led by Brooke Timber."

Brooke's jaw dropped. "Me?" she murmured slightly, walking forwards with her new team off the stage.

"Congratulations," Ozpin gave a small nod as the newly formed Team BRVE made their way off the stage.

"Me? A leader?" Brooke's mouth had failed to find a way to close.

"Congratulations!" Rocky gave her back a playful smack.

Violet smiled at Brooke. "You deserve it! We're gonna be the greatest team here!"

Elliot gave a small smile and nod to the wolf Faunus, who was still incapable of closing her mouth. "You're gonna catch flies like that."

Brooke shook her head, closing her mouth, but incapable of stopping the huge smile crossing her face.

The team looked back up at the stage to see the formation of Team JNPR and Team RWBY. As the other teams joined them on the other side of the stage, also overly excited about their teams and their leadership, aside from Weiss. Ozpin turned to the crowd and gave one last remark.

"It's shaping up to be an interesting year."

* * *

 **AN 2:**

Now that introduction and setup stuff is _finally_ out of the way, we'll be going in a direction that primarily focuses on Team BRVE as opposed to the members of the other Teams, but they will appear from time to time when their plotlines intertwine, but still loosely following the general plotlines of cannon. I'm going to try and stop myself from writing any more chapters until I finish my papers, so it may be a few extra days between this one and the next.


	6. Chapter 4: New Beginnings

**AN:**

Holy crap I can update again! Now that final papers have thoroughly kicked my butt, I've actually found time to write some more. I worked fairly hard on this chapter, working on some development of these characters both within the chapter and in my notes of things I want to work into the fic at a later point in the story. I would have had this out about a day ago, but I had some struggles with certain parts, which I've fixed with the suggestions of a couple close friends.

Since I'm out of school for a little over a month, I'll be updating quite a bit more regularly. I also plan on working on another fic, one much more smaller and fluffier, focused a bit on Bumbleby. The first chapter will be up in the next few days if you're interested. I still plan on devoting a lot of time to this, as I'd like it to be rather long and detailed, but I also want to work in the shorter fic I had originally planned for before this. Once I go back to school, it'll be harder to keep updating both regularly, but I don't think the new fic will be _that_ long.

Anyways, do enjoy this chapter!

* * *

 **Chapter 4**

 **New Beginnings**

The morning after initiation, Brooke was the first one awake.

The newly formed team BRVE had passed out almost immediately upon arriving to their dorm the night before. They had learned they were in the same hallway as teams RWBY and JNPR, but each team had been far too exhausted to be overly excited about it. The girls had taken the two beds on the left side, the boys had taken the two beds on the right side, and the four of them passed out immediately after hitting the beds.

Brooke looked around the room, remembering slowly where she was. _Beacon. Dorm room. BRVE. I'm a team leader!_ Brooke's excitements of the day before came flooding back to her.

Brooke noticed a new addition to the room, four stacks of luggage lined up near the door. It wasn't exactly hard to tell the owners of the luggage without reading the cards attached to small strings. Brooke's luggage, despite not being much of a pile since it was only two bags and the backpack, was dark brown. Rocky's luggage consisted of lime green storage bins as opposed to actual luggage, although he had only a couple of bins and one small suitcase. Brooke had momentarily forgot he'd basically lived at Beacon for his whole life anyways, so his luggage just involved moving his stuff from the teachers' housing to the dorms. Violet's luggage was bright purple, true to both her name and her hair, stacked up in a huge pile beyond anything Brooke could ever imagine. Elliot's luggage was a very light yellow, barely a shade darker than white. The light luggage was stacked in a moderate pile, what Brooke could only assume would be a _reasonable_ amount of luggage for someone to bring to Beacon, unlike her and Violet.

Brooke then noticed four outfits laid out on one of the desks, each tucked into a bag with a name written on it. Her stomach tightened as she knew what they were, something she had been dreading. Deciding to ignore it a bit longer, Brooke made a beeline for the bathroom, deciding to get her day started.

By the time Brooke left the bathroom, showered, but changed back into her pajamas, the rest of her team had woken up. Rocky and Elliot were lifting their moderate amounts of luggage onto their beds. Meanwhile, Violet was sitting on her bed, staring at her very tall pile of luggage anxiously.

"Good morning," Brooke said as she stretched her arms above her head, her whole body extending. Even her ears seemed to stretch out as far as Brooke could get them to without unfolding them.

"Morning." Rocky dropped one of his storage bins onto his bed.

"Dibs." Elliot jeered towards the bathroom, briefly giving Brooke a nod as he dashed past.

"What am I going to do with all that stuff…" Violet sighed, thinking out loud as she stared at her luggage pile from her bed, where she was still sitting cross-legged.

"I could help you if you want. I don't exactly have a lot to unpack." Brooke pointed at the two small suitcases on her bed, and the backpack draped across the bottom board of the bed.

"Wait, that's all you have? We thought you'd managed to pack some away already." Rocky raised an eyebrow at the wolf Faunus.

Brooke nodded. "Just the two bags and my backpack. I don't own a whole lot of personal possessions."

"Just make sure you take care of your stuff first, but then I might take you up on that offer," Violet said with a smile at the wolf Faunus, choosing to move past the comment about the lack of personal belongings. Violet may have grown up rich, but she had quickly learned not to really comment on these types of situations after embarrassing herself quite a few times back at Signal.

Brooke didn't take very long to unpack. She only had a couple sets of clothes, toiletries and other necessities, some tiny trinkets from home, and a few books. The two suitcases were not very large as it was, so it only took her longer than ten minutes or so. When she was done, she turned to see Violet struggling to lift the huge packages of luggage onto her bed and slowly chip away at the pile of purple.

Violet nearly dropped one of the huge suitcases, but Brooke was almost immediately by her side, grabbing it. "Thanks," Violet stammered. "These things are heavier than I remembered."

Brooke took the entire package in her arms, with just a bit of effort. "Jeez, Violet, what do you have in here, bricks?" Brooke dropped the package onto Violet's bed.

"Not bricks, ammo," Violet said as she opened it up.

"Dear god…" Brooke gasped as she looked into the luggage. The entire thing was packed full of smaller boxes of Vince Weapons brand ammunition, with various colors on the boxes, which signified the different types of dust infusion. "How many of these do you _have_ exactly?"

"I… uh… four."

"Four suitcases?" Brooke cocked an eyebrow at the purple girl.

Violet gave a feeble nod as she looked over at the pile again.

"Violet, you know you could have just… called your dad and have him sent you more ammo, right?" Rocky strolled over to Violet's bed, not as shocked at the stockpile as Brooke was, but still slightly overwhelmed at the fact that there were _four_ suitcases filled with the massive stockpile.

"This was my dad's idea, actually. He wanted me to have enough. I just wanted to bring one… But he insisted on four. He insisted on a lot of things I brought, actually. I _really_ didn't want to be that girl with the giant pile of luggage, but here I am." Violet sighed as she walked back over to the pile.

"Where are you going to keep all this?" Brooke picked up a small box of regular ammo, looking over it.

"I don't really know." Violet crouched down next to the luggage, unsure of what to go for next.

"How about we figure out your clothes and necessities first? Then we'll sort through the weapons stuff, and any extra whatever. All my stuff's already set, so wherever there's space on this half of the room, you can put whatever you need to there," Brooke offered to the defeated girl.

Violet looked over her shoulder. "Really?"

Brooke nodded. "Really, it's fine. I've lived in more crowded conditions."

"Yet you barely have anything on you," Rocky said with an eyebrow raise.

Violet silently cursed Rocky out in her thoughts. _Why'd you bring it back up, idiot?_

Brooke chuckled slightly as Elliot emerged from the bathroom, his extremely light hair a shade slightly darker from the shower. "I might as well get this over with now, I have a feeling it's going to come up a lot."

"What is?" Elliot asked, heading over for his bed, plopping down on an empty space in between his luggage.

"I just mentioned how I've lived in more crowded conditions than this dorm, but Rocky pointed out how I just said I owned very little personal belongings. So I figured I'd get this out of the way," Brooke sighed, walking back over to the pile of purple luggage. "I grew up in a big family. I mean, a _big_ family. In total, including my parents, there were sixteen of us. Seven boys, seven girls, two parents."

Violet gasped slightly, as Rocky looked on in shock. Elliot knew the Timber family was big, but not _that_ big, so even he was a bit blown away.

"We live in a four-bedroom house. Sixteen people. Four bedrooms. It would make sense to do four in each room, but to be honest, the number is still increasing. So, we break it up by age and gender. Well, aside from my parents. They get their own room, but they actually took the smallest room, as it's kind of necessary in our house. There's the nursery, any kid under 5 lives in there. Usually not more than 3 at a time. The remaining two rooms are split into boys and girls, and a couple of the older boys live out in the loggers' house on our property, since they work fulltime as loggers on our property, so it just makes sense for them to live with the loggers we hire. Other than that, I usually lived with about five girls, in a room about, I don't know, two-thirds the side of this? We used bunkbeds and all that. Which is why I don't exactly own a lot. There really was _no_ room."

"Holy shit. That's a big family." Rocky broke the silence that followed Brooke's explanation on her family.

Brooke shrugged. "It's just my life, you know? Never knew anything different. Do the three of you have any siblings?"

The three shook their heads in response. "Vi and I are both only children," Rocky explained.

"Same here," Elliot offered with a shrug.

Brooke blinked in shock, silent for a moment. All she'd ever known was her family and taking care of her siblings, and all of her teammates were only children, alien to the concept of the love of siblings. "We should, uh, really get back to this luggage," Brooke sighed as she looked at the pile. "Point out whichever ones are clothes and necessities, and I'll bring those over next. I'm hoping there a bit lighter than the ammo."

Violet chuckled at Brooke. "You haven't even felt my shoe collection yet. Let's start with that one though." Violet pointed at one of the pieces of luggage, and Brooke picked it up.

"Jesus Christ, you were not kidding," Brooke gasped as she heaved up the suitcase.

"That's just outfits, not even shoes!" Violet giggled slightly, reminding Brooke that the badass-tomboyish-sharpshooter actually only reflected this style in battle gear, and was quite a bit feminine in casual clothing.

Brooke gave out a fake and sarcastic groan as she dropped the suitcase on the bed and unzipped it, looking at the tremendous amount of contents on the inside. "Let's get this unpacked, and we can have a lesson on why it's never necessary to own this many different outfits."

Violet smirked back at the wolf Faunus. "I'm going to take you clothes shopping one day. Is all you own brown?"

"Is all you own purple?" Brooke gestured to the large purple suitcase, filled with almost entirely purple clothes.

"Touché. Still, one day. We gotta get you something a bit more stylish than the lumberjack look."

"Vi, Brooke _is_ a lumberjack," Rocky sighed at his best friend as he walked past her towards the bathroom, getting ready to shower.

"Well, now Brooke's a huntress. Mark my word, one day, it will happen." Violet held her fist up in the air triumphantly, only to be caught off guard by a purple shirt flying at her.

"Hang up and put away clothes now, talk about buying more clothes later." Brooke chuckled.

"But-!" Violet was cut off by a light purple skirt hitting her in the head. "Fine," the girl groaned, grabbing some clothes and heading for the closet.

* * *

By some extremely lucky miracle, the two girls managed to put away most of Violet's belongings within the hour. Sure, most of her clothes filled up drawers that should have belonged to Brooke, but they were mostly empty anyways. Their shared closet was about 30% Brooke, 70% Violet, but it wasn't like Brooke _had_ clothes to fill the space anyways.

The two had solved the ammo crisis by deciding to separate all the ammo into different suitcases based on ammo type: regular sniper ammo, dust sniper ammo, regular pistol ammo, and dust pistol ammo. They then managed to fit all four of the suitcases underneath Violet's bed, although explosiveness was a bit of a worry. They determined this was a temporary solution, until they could find somewhere a bit less dangerous to store the stockpile of Vince Weapons ammo.

Elliot and Rocky had not taken long to unpack their things, and ended up helping Violet out as well. Violet managed to dash off for a fast shower towards the end, when they were just separating ammo types. When they were finally all done, a brief look around the room made the room feel a lot homier. From Brooke's small wooden carvings on her desk, to Violet's overly purple everything, to Rocky's giant punk rock music collection (which, as Rocky often liked to point out, was on both CD and Vinyl), to Elliot's small collections of books on the art of warfare and the history of sword fighting, each person's belongings really brought the room together.

Brooke came to a horrifying realization. She would have to put on her uniform soon. As the others cycled through the bathroom again, this time dressing into their uniforms, Brooke decided to go last. Yet, when it was finally her time to go, she _really_ did not want to come out of the bathroom dressed in the new uniform.

* * *

"Oh, come on, it can't be _that_ bad," Rocky said with a sigh, trying to ease his partner out of the bathroom.

"I look like an idiot!" Brooke called anxiously from behind the bathroom door.

"We _all_ look like idiots, Brooke. We can all be idiots _together_." Violet called out from across the room, as she was shuffling through the school supplies in her shoulder bag.

"We gotta leave soon if we wanna get breakfast before class," Rocky tried again, still standing near the locked bathroom door.

"Fine," Brooke huffed from behind the door.

Rocky took a step back as the door unlocked from the inside of the bathroom. The door slowly opened as Brooke stepped out.

The wolf Faunus wore a scowl on her face. The girl who normally looked like a full-blown lumberjack was dressed in a plaid skirt and a slightly ill-fitting blouse. It looked a bit odd on her fairly flat chest, considering the blouse was made for literally anyone with more of a chest than Brooke. The others found this to be the strangest part of her outfit, but Brooke found the skirt to be the strangest aspect of the uniform.

"You don't even look bad!" Rocky exclaimed.

"You're just saying that to be nice," Brooke huffed, her ears pressed up against her head in frustration.

"He's telling the truth, you look cute in a skirt! And you should consider yourself lucky, he doesn't exactly compliment girls often." Violet bounced up next to her best friend, giving him a small smirk. Rocky, of course, being the boy that he was, elbowed her in the chest at her comment.

"I don't _do_ skirts." Brooke hissed, choosing to ignore Violet's other comment.

"Well now you do!" Rocky said with a smile, putting his arm around a reluctant Brooke's shoulders. "Let's go get breakfast."

Brooke huffed, her ears still pressed up against her head. "The moment classes end, I'm coming right back up here, and getting changed. Mark my words, that will be literally every day of the next few years."

"You'll get used to it!" Violet exclaimed, giving herself a little spin, sending her skirt fluffing out as she spun. "I used to hate skirts and dresses. Now I wear them all the time if I'm not fighting!"

"I noticed. We hung up a _lot_ of dresses." Brooke allowed a smile to creep across her face, her ears perking up a bit as the smile spread.

"You know it!" Violet flashed her widest smile in response.

"Not to break up the little skirt-fest, but we really should go get breakfast now if we want to make it to class on time," Elliot finally piped up from the other side of the room, slinging his backpack over his shoulder as he strode towards the other three.

"Hey, _I'm_ not wearing a skirt." Rocky let go of his partner's shoulders and strode over to his bed, where his own backpack lay.

"I really wouldn't be all that surprised if you were, Rocky." Elliot smirked at the boy as the four made their way to the door.

Rocky laughed and shook his head. "If I _were_ to wear a skirt, I'd be wearing something _much_ better than those hideous plaid things."

"I thought you said I didn't look bad," Brooke chided her partner in a playful manner, which Rocky did not seem to pick up on.

"I – uh – you don't look bad. I don't think those skirts look that great in general, but you rock plaid." Rocky scratched the back of his head, nervously trying to cover up the blunder he had made.

"Are you saying my flannel doesn't look good?" Brooke's face broke out into a smile, cueing Rocky to return the smile, realizing that Brooke wasn't actually being serious.

"I mean, the lumberjack look was _so_ last year." Rocky received an elbow to the chest from Brooke for the comment, but the two partners burst out laughing.

"You two are _idiots_ ," Violet said with a smirk, shaking her head.

" _You're_ the one who's best friends with this _idiot_ ," Rocky pointed both of his thumbs at himself as the four approached the elevator.

"Elliot, what do you think of the uniforms?" Violet asked, turning to her mostly silent partner.

"They aren't too bad. The uniforms at Haven kind of make the students look like they escaped a mental asylum." Elliot gave a small shrug, being extremely casual with his statement. Brooke, knowing this to be true, had little reaction, but Violet and Rocky found the statement to be _hilarious_ , unable to stop laughing.

"What's so funny? It's true," Brooke added with a shrug, exchanging a supporting glance with her teammate.

"A mental asylum? It can't be _that_ bad." Rocky took a moment to stop laughing and speak, but it only lasted long enough for him to get the words out before he burst out laughing again.

"They've got these really weird jackets with super bizarre collars. It really looks odd," Elliot explained as the elevator doors opened onto the ground floor, the four teammates walking out towards the dining hall.

"Elliot, why didn't you go to school at Haven? Why'd you come all the way to Beacon?" Brooke asked, attempting to ignore the two colorful laughing _idiots_ , as Violet would say.

Elliot's face flushed a bit at the question, fearing the questions that he thought were sure to follow. "I got an offer from Ozpin himself. I almost didn't come, for a number of reasons, but Pyrrha convinced me to come. I'm pretty glad I did."

"Why's that?" Brooke asked, tilting her head slightly at the boy of light.

"You're all so… Genuine. I don't think I would have gotten that back in Mistral. I mean, I really didn't get it at Sanctum, so I'm assuming that Haven would have ended up being the same way, just the same ingenuine people acting like the same idiots they were at Sanctum." Elliot's words finally got the two best friends to quit laughing.

"What do you mean ingenuine? Did they like, try to take advantage of your strength and what not?" Rocky asked.

"I…" Elliot stammered, as he pushed through the doors to the dining hall. "Food first, talk after." Elliot made a bit of a beeline to the buffet, attempting to get away from his teammates.

"That was strange," Violet rose an eyebrow at her partner.

"I… wouldn't bring that up exactly." Brooke sighed, looking at the two Vale natives.

"Why's that?" Rocky asked.

"The media… is not very _kind_ in Mistral. Especially not to Elliot. They love to stir up drama."

"What do you mean?" Violet asked the wolf Faunus, only more confused by her statement.

"That's something for him to talk about, in his own time. Just, let him bring it up on his own." Brooke left the pair confused, exchanging glances as she too made her way over to the food line.

"I – uh, okay." Rocky scratched the back of his head, looking towards Violet.

"Let's just go get some food, doofus." Violet grabbing the punk boy by his arm, dragging him off towards the food line.

* * *

The remainder of breakfast was incident-free. The team made some small talk about the classes for the day, and Rocky gave them little tips on the different teachers. Professor Port was a bit boring, Doctor Oobleck talked _way_ too fast, and Professor Goodwitch was very stern and strict. Rocky struggled to call them all by their professional names. Violet cracked a couple jokes at Rocky's slip ups, Brooke joined in, and even Elliot broke his usual silence to laugh a little at some of the imitations Violet made of Rocky calling Professor Oobleck "Uncle Bart".

Team BRVE made their way to their very first class, Grimm Studies with Professor Port. Just before the bell rang, team RWBY and team JNPR came rushing in, desperately trying to catch their breath as they collapsed into their seats. Elliot was about to ask Pyrrha what had happened to the eight of them, but Professor Port entered the room, beginning his lecture.

Brooke quickly decided that Rocky had _not_ been wrong about Port. His lecture was dreadfully boring, tales of his heroism as a younger huntsman. Brooke had really _tried_ to be interested at first, but it was _so hard_ to listen to him drone on and on.

That was the case for Brooke, until she noticed the weapon hanging above the board in Professor's Port class. It was a double-bladed axe with a gun built into it. Brooke couldn't care less about the gun, but that axe was similar to Brooke's weapon, except that Port's version was about half the size of Brooke's. Brooke found herself sitting on the edge of her chair, all four of her ears absorbing every word of his stories. He described in great detail the movements and actions he took to slaughter various forms of Grimm. While his fighting style was somewhat different from Brooke's, given that his axe was significantly smaller, she still jotted down notes on ideas she got from his stories that she would try later on training dummies with her own axe.

The rest of team BRVE was having no such luck. Rocky had heard these stories a _million_ times before, even if he'd never attended a lecture prior to today. Professor Port just _loved_ to tell stories about his prime to whoever was around. More often than not, a bored, younger Rocky, who was wandering school grounds, happened to be found by Port. This common occurrence had caused Rocky to constantly wear headphones on his head, even if no music was playing, as it allowed him to avoid Port's attention. Rocky entertained himself during this lecture by simply jotted down small ticks on his paper whenever Port changed something in the story from the last time Rocky had the misfortune of hearing it. Somehow, the list of embellishments had reached a new high of 62.

Violet found herself zoning out. She'd tried to take notes, but she'd ended up just doodling pictures of her guns on her paper. She'd always loved making really cool drawings of herself shooting at Grimm. Today, of course, had been no exception. Her current masterpiece was herself shooting at an Ursa from the trees, just as she had the day before during initiation. For once, it wasn't just her. She drew all the members of her new team fighting off the Ursa, and sketched a fancy lettering of her team's name at the top. It took her nearly the whole class to finish, but she was quite happy with it.

Elliot was trying extremely hard to pay attention to Port's lecture, but he found the various reactions of his classmates to be _much_ more interesting. It wasn't _his_ fault he naturally had a hard time focusing on one thing. His semblance may allow him to focus on two things in battle, but it did not translate as well into his everyday life. Elliot had a _very_ hard time sitting still and focusing, which led him to be a bit lacking in the classroom department. His superb fighting skills made up for this, as his semblance and aura were so strong that it carried over into his everyday life.

Elliot was watching Ruby mess around out of the corner of his eye when he was alerted to Port asking a question and both Weiss and Brooke shooting their hands into the air at the same time. The two girls glared at each other as they noticed the other. Professor Port took a few moments to decide, but ended up choosing Weiss and promising Brooke he would choose her for the next demonstration in class.

The demonstration was certainly… something. Weiss was an obviously skilled fighter, but she seemed to have a bad temper. When she lashed out at her team for cheering her on, Brooke's stomach stirred with anger. Weiss was showing aspects of who Brooke had expected Weiss to resemble. Brooke tried to shove the emotions down; one occurrence didn't mean that Weiss was some horrible person.

Yet, Brooke couldn't seem to completely push it off. Weiss rubbed her the wrong way. She didn't want to bring her past with her to Beacon. Brooke just wanted to be herself, not a Timber. Weiss's presence was making this tactic increasingly hard, and Brooke was worried. Brooke was worried either Weiss was going to prove her right, or Brooke was going to make a fool of herself getting worked up over the small things Weiss did.

With a huff and the flattening of her ears up against her head, Brooke crossed her arms as she watched Weiss finish off the Boarbatusk she had been tasked with defeating in front of the class. Weiss strutted out of the room, ahead of the rest of her team, walking with a very entitled attitude. Brooke's eyes narrowed. She was still _very_ unsure of what she should think of Weiss. Only time would tell.


	7. Chapter 5: Never Have I Ever

**Chapter 5**

 **Never Have I Ever**

The door to the dorm burst open as a particularly exhausted team BRVE stumbled inside. Brooke immediately made a beeline for her bed, snatching up her casual clothes that she had left out this morning. "Dibs!" she yelled out, darting for the bathroom. She'd done this every day this week, and no one minded. Her teammates all understood that she couldn't stand to be in the skirt, certainly not yet, and she took every chance she could to immediately change into her normal lumberjack attire. The other three were quietly settling down, waiting for their turns to get changed into some more comfortable clothing.

Brooke emerged from the bathroom not a minute later. She figured by the time she left Beacon, she'd have changing out of her uniform down to under ten seconds. She looked around the room at her teammates to see what they were up to. Naturally, Violet and Rocky were in a corner, whispering about something. Brooke rose an eyebrow, but shook it off. It was just how they were.

Elliot was sitting down at his desk, sighing as he looked at the backpack he had set down next to him. "We've got a lot of work to do this weekend."

"We don't have to start that tonight. We should celebrate! We finished our full first week of classes at Beacon!" Brooke exclaimed with a smile. The punk and the purple girl stopped whispering and looked at her.

A huge smile sprawled out across Rocky's face. "That's what I was thinking, partner!"

"Celebrate? Like how?" Elliot asked as he turned towards the rest of his team.

Brooke thought for a moment. "Well, dinner is soon, so we could go get that first. Then we could come back up here and do some team bonding or something. Truth or Dare, or one of those types of games. What do people do to get to know each other better?" Brooke looked to the other three for an answer.

"Truth or Dare is more of something when you already know each other pretty well, at least for the dare part. Something more like Never Have I Ever or the like would be better," Rocky answered with a shrug.

"Okay, so dinner, then whatever game you just suggested, back in the dorm!" Brooke smiled at her teammates.

"You've never played Never Have I Ever?" Violet looked at the wolf Faunus quizzically.

"I'd never even heard of it until just now." Brooke blushed as she spoke sheepishly. She hated when stuff she'd never heard of or done before got brought up. She was just eternally happy that she'd encountered her first elevator in the hotel Ozpin had sent Brooke to for the week between her arrival in Vale and the start of the school year at Beacon. She couldn't even begin to imagine the teasing that Rocky and Violet would do.

She loved her teammates; she loved the dynamic they all had together. Sometimes it hurt, however, when Rocky and Violet teased her about not knowing things. Brooke knew they were only kidding around and she shouldn't take them seriously, but it was hard to just brush it off sometimes. Elliot usually saw her in these moments and changed the subject, for which Brooke was eternally grateful for. Elliot may have been the quietest member of their team, but Brooke was forever thankful he was there. She'd made it her personal mission to befriend him, despite his usually quiet and serious manner.

As if on cue, Elliot piped up. "That sounds like a plan. Let's finish getting changed then head down."

"I'm next!" Rocky called out, yanking one of his outfits from his shared closet and darted into the bathroom.

Brooke tucked her uniform neatly away in the closet as Violet flopped down onto her bed, sitting cross-legged at the edge. Elliot stood up from the desk and walked over to the window of the dorm, looking out. The two girls noticed he was going to speak, but hesitated. Eventually, he let it out.

"Do you guys ever, like, get suddenly really excited because you realize you're really here?" the boy of light asked as he held one of the curtains in his hand, overlooking the courtyard.

"All the time," Brooke said with a smile.

"Really? I thought I was the only one." Elliot looked back at his team leader and returned her smile.

"Three weeks ago, being a huntress was an impossible dream I'd had for my whole life. Now I'm here. It still blows my mind sometimes. I'm _actually_ going to be able to chase my dream." Brooke joined her teammate out the window, looking out and smiling to herself.

Violet looked at her team leader. The wolf Faunus was clutching excitedly to the windowsill, her ears twitching in excitement and happiness as she looked out the window at the courtyard below. Violet had always known she was destined for Beacon. It had sort of always been a given for her. She couldn't begin to imagine the joy her team leader felt about going here.

Elliot, on the other hand… Violet struggled to understand her partner at times. Like, why would he get overwhelmed with joy randomly about being at Beacon? He's the best swordfighter in the world!

 _Well, we do barely know each other. It's only been a week._

Violet's train of thought was interrupted by the jiggling of the bathroom door handle. "I'm next!" she cried out as she leaped over the foot of her bed and grabbed her casual clothing to change into.

Brooke and Elliot left the window as Rocky exited the bathroom. The punk hadn't yet put on his signature leather jacket, simply sporting his lime green undershirt. Brooke had never really paid attention to her partner's overwhelming muscular build. _Goddamn, that boy has some muscle._

Brooke made her way over to her bed, sitting down for a moment. "Rocky… can I ask you a question?"

"Go for it." The punk slung his jacket on, adjusting the shoulders so that the small spikes stood up properly.

"How'd you get that much muscle?" Brooke asked sheepishly.

Rocky chuckled a bit. "A lot of protein and a lot of workouts. I always had a very strict workout regime. I could help you make your own, if you'd like."

Brooke's eyes lit up, the deep chocolatey brown bursting with excited emotion. "You will?"

"Of course. What kind of partner would I be if I didn't?" Rocky flashed a smile, highlighting his lip piercing.

"An _idiot_ one." Brooke smirked, mimicking Violet's usual tone.

"That's not even close, _idiots_ ," Violet spoke as she emerged from the bathroom, her voice matching _exactly_ how Brooke had mocked it. The wolf Faunus and the punk burst out laughing, unable to control themselves from Violet's accidental confirmation of Brooke's mockery. Elliot slipped past the group towards the bathroom as the purple girl shook her head and crossed her arms at the two. "You're only furthering my point that you're both _idiots_."

Rocky took a second to catch his breath, but wrapped his arm around Violet's shoulder. "Oh, come on Vi. You love us."

Violet smirked at the boy. "Questionable…"

Brooke looked at the two, her eyes scanning the two friends, eyes locked and smiling at each other. Were they _just_ friends? Brooke seriously hadn't been able to tell. They were constantly basically all over each other, but it seemed somewhat joking to Brooke at times. She'd known the pair for about a week, and she still just could _not_ tell.

Brooke watched the friends for a few more moments as Elliot emerged from the bathroom, the final of the four to get changed. Still confused, the wolf Faunus finally decided to ask the question that had been nagging her since she had met the two friends.

"Hey, uh, are you guys… like, a thing or something?" Brooke stammered out, feeling extremely awkward.

The two friends glanced at Brooke, and then each other, for just a mere moment. Violet burst out laughing, outstretching her pale hand. Rocky sighed and fished his wallet out of his back pocket. "Oh, shut up. Here's your 20 lien." He shoved the lien into Violet's hand, who had dulled down to a snicker.

"Uh, what?" Brooke asked, her ears tilting to the side as she slightly cocked her head in confusion.

"Rocky and I had a bet to see whose partner would ask first. I _won_." Violet smirked at the wolf Faunus as Rocky shoved his wallet back into his pocket.

"I believe what my dear friend Violet meant to say here was 'No, Brooke! Rocky and aren't together. I could never get such a handsome hunk like him'," Rocky crossed his arms as he mocked Violet's voice once more.

Violet jabbed her elbow into his chest. "You aren't even my type."

"Neither are you," Rocky laughed, pushing Violet's arm away playfully.

Violet shook her head and addressed Brooke. "We get the question a lot. Like, _a lot_."

"If I had five lien for every time we got asked, I'd be richer than Violet," Rocky smirked, relaxing his crossed arms.

"Oh, hush. That's not true." Violet shook her head at the punk.

Brooke gave a small shrug. "I mean, I see why you get the question a lot. Usually guys and girls aren't like, super best friends to the point that you two are."

"Some people just can't control their attractions. I don't have a problem with that, considering I don't even like girls," Rocky jabbed one of his thumbs towards himself to point at the huge smiling grin on his face.

"Really now? I didn't really peg you as gay," Brooke said with a tilt to her head, her ears perking up.

"That's what they all say. Until I peg them. In the ass. 'Cause I'm gay," Rocky smirked, obviously very proud of his carefully explained joke.

Brooke looked at Violet, who simply sighed and shook her head before speaking to the punk. "Rocky, ending your gay jokes with ''Cause I'm gay' doesn't make them any funnier."

"You're just jealous, since I get to make all the great gay jokes." Rocky ruffled the purple girl's hair.

"Hey! I'm Bi Vi! Biolet! There's a _million_ jokes about me being bisexual!" Violet pouted, swatting away Rocky's hands from her head.

Rocky snickered. "Okay, I'll give you that. You know I'm a sucker for Biolet."

" _Idiot_ ," Violet smirked, walking over to the mirror as she fixed her hair.

"I mean, it could always be worse. You could always be me, the walking stereotype of a butch lesbian. When I got my first crush on a girl my siblings never let me hear the end of it," Brooke smiled at the two.

Elliot, who had been sitting quietly in the corner, finally piped up. "Wait, Brooke, you're a lesbian?"

Violet turned and looked at her partner. "Oh, come on. Even for a lumberjack, she wears _way_ too much flannel to be straight."

"She's not wrong. And yeah, I am," Brooke said with a nod to the boy of light sitting on his bed.

"So, wait, team BRVE has two sets of partners. A lesbian and a gay guy on one set, and a bisexual girl and a bisexual guy on the other set. You have _got_ to be kidding me." Elliot shook his head with a light laugh.

"Dude, you're bi too? Sweet! Can I propose that we call our team attacks team gay and team bi?" Violet spun around to ask Brooke the latter question.

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Brooke shook her head as she smiled. "As much as I'd like to sit up here cracking jokes about who we'd bang, we should go grab some dinner. I'm _starving_." As if on cue, Brooke's stomach growled at a noise level comparable to that of a Beowolf. Brooke's face lit up like a cherry at the noise, causing the other three teammates to laugh.

"Come on, partner. Let's go silence that beast," Rocky said with a smirk as he put his hand on her shoulder.

* * *

Team BRVE had found themselves at a table with team RWBY and team JNPR in the dining hall, everyone excited to celebrate the first week of classes coming to a close. The twelve had even managed to snag one of the large circular tables in the corner of the hall, as opposed to the extremely long rectangular tables that would certainly split up the conversation with such a large group. Their food had been devoured almost immediately, yet they had not left the table as they all wanted to simply catch up with each other after a bit of a chaotic first week.

Brooke had somewhat expected the group to split up like they had on the first day at Beacon, before they had formed teams, but was pretty shocked to find that everyone still stayed with their teams to a relative point. The edges of the teams were bordered by cross-team friends, like Rocky and Violet sitting next to Yang, Elliot sitting next to Pyrrha, and Ruby sitting next to Jaune.

Brooke's attention had shifted from the inter-team mingling to a specific person in the group. At various other meals at the rectangular tables, Brooke had tried to get a closer look at Blake's "bow". Brooke could _tell_ , despite only ever looking at it for a second. Brooke could take in a _lot_ in a single second. A twitching _bow_ was certainly one of those observations Brooke could make in under a second. There was _no_ way that was just a bow. _Bows_ don't twitch like that. Blake had to be a Faunus in hiding.

Brooke had silently questioned Blake's reasoning, but tried to brush it off. Brooke was sure that Blake had good enough reason, and judging by one of her teammates, that was reason enough. Brooke hadn't even thought about hiding her ears before coming to Beacon. Whatever Blake's reason, Brooke was determined to keep the secret just that: a secret.

The rest of team BRVE was completely oblivious to Brooke's observations. Rocky was busy chatting with Yang, trying to come up with some puns for the newly discovered information about the sexualities of their team members. Violet was mocking the pair, causing Ruby and Jaune to laugh from across the table, occasionally soliciting a small smile from even Blake and Weiss. Brooke opted to join in with Violet's mocking, pretending to be Rocky while Violet pretended to be Yang. Nora was blabbering to Ren and Pyrrha, overly excited about everything, as always.

Elliot was pretty quiet, observing and playing with what was left of his food. He'd never been one for larger situations like this, or really social situations in general. Pyrrha had simply befriended Elliot back in Sanctum because he wasn't like the other students there. He didn't care about power or fighting ability. He'd always been a quieter boy, somewhat shy. He had his way on the battlefield, but in social situations, he severely fell short. Even Pyrrha had the ability to make friends here at Beacon. Elliot had just kind of shuffled along silently behind his team, two people who were already best friends and a team leader who was trying her best to become friends with all of them. Except for Elliot.

Elliot couldn't really lie to himself much. He hadn't exactly put himself out there. He only ever occasionally chimed into conversations, or pointed out when it was time for the team to go somewhere. Elliot had always had a very hard time being open about anything, but it had gotten leagues worse since he began competing in the Mistral tournament. He'd pretty much shut himself out from everyone, except for Pyrrha on occasion. Even so, the warrior girl knew little about the personal life of the swordsman. Elliot guarded that close to his heart.

Glancing around the group of friends, old and new, Elliot silently sighed. Everyone was having such a good time, and he had shut himself out from the group, yet again. This time, he didn't really even have Pyrrha to lean on as a social crutch. Even Pyrrha had found genuine friendships in her teammates. Elliot felt very alone, despite being surrounded by eleven other people.

Almost as if she were reading his mind, Brooke gently nudged Elliot from her side of him. "Don't count yourself out on the conversation, El. Hop in," the wolf Faunus whispered beneath the steady conversation going on around the table.

"Did you just call me El?" Elliot asked his team leader as he cocked an eyebrow.

"Well, I figured you needed a nickname too. Rocky's name is literally a nickname, and Violet's got Vi. You needed one too." Brooke's voice was no longer at a whisper as she developed a normal conversation with the quiet boy.

"El. I like it," Elliot smiled, "but you don't have a nickname either."

"You can't really make one out of Brooke. It's already pretty short," the wolf Faunus said with a shrug.

"Based on the way Rocky and Yang are going at it, you're going to have about a thousand gay related nicknames by the end of the night." Elliot sent a quick glance to the two in question, who were laughing hysterically.

Brooke's eyebrows rose with her ears as she cocked her head slightly towards the two laughing friends. Violet shook her head and sighed at the confused wolf Faunus. "Rocky made a LumberButch pun, and then Yang made a pun about LumberBrooke. They haven't stopped laughing for a solid half minute. It wasn't even _that_ funny."

"You weren't wrong," Brooke sighed as she shook her head, turning back towards Elliot, "and neither of those are even original."

"We'll find one eventually," Elliot said with a smile.

"Brooke!" Ruby called out from across the table. "What's your team doing tonight?"

"We're having a team bonding night. We're playing, uh…" Brooke looked at Violet, who smirked as she rolled her eyes playfully.

"We're playing Never Have I Ever and whatever else might come up. Someone's never played it," Violet gave a quick glance towards a blushing Brooke.

"You've never played Never Have I Ever?" Ruby asked Brooke in shock.

"Nope." Brooke was starting to feel like the question was a little repetitive.

"Do not fret, my friend. Tonight we will introduce you to all the wonders of games played by teenage girls at sleepovers." Violet smirked as she playfully nudged Brooke with her elbow, noticeably lighter than the force she used often on Rocky.

Brooke looked a bit concerned. "Teenage girls at sleepovers? This isn't about to be like a totally overdone TV episode, is it?"

"We'll see." Violet chuckled, causing several others who had noted the conversation going on to chuckle as well. Even Elliot laughed a little, to which Brooke gave him a playful shove.

"Not you too!" Brooke sighed.

"Oh, Brooke, you've got a night ahead of you. Even I know that this is going to be, well, interesting, at the very least." Elliot smirked, causing Brooke to smile in return.

* * *

Brooke had guessed right. The night _totally_ played out like an overdone TV show.

Team BRVE had changed into pajamas after dinner and gathered in the small open space between the two sides of the room. Rocky ran to the communal kitchenette down the hall, heated up some popcorn, while Elliot and Violet prepped a huge mess of blankets and pillows in the middle of the room. Brooke had been told to sit and wait, as they had to make her introduction to overdone teenage games _absolutely perfect_ , to put it in Violet's terms.

By the time everything had been set up, Brooke felt like this had all been a bit _too_ hyped up. Yet, she listened intently as Violet excitedly explained the rules to her as Rocky dumped the two bags of popcorn into a really big bowl, the origins of which were still unknown to Brooke. She assumed he had his ways.

"Everyone starts with ten fingers, and we go in a circle saying something we've never done. Like, never have I ever been skydiving. If anyone here has been skydiving, that person puts a finger down. Whoever lasts the longest wins. Usually things are a little less tame than skydiving, but it's a decent example." As Violet explained the rules, she took Brooke's hand and manipulated the opening and closing of the Faunus's fingers along with her example.

"Okay, that's easy enough to understand." Brooke gave a nod.

Rocky popped a piece of popcorn into his mouth. "I'll go first," he said through the mushy food.

"Gross, Rocky. Wait till you swallow," Violet shook her head.

Rocky simply grinned at the purple girl, shooting her a couple finger guns.

"I swear to god, I don't know why we're friends," Violet sighed, rolling her eyes playfully at the punk. Brooke and Elliot exchanged a glance, both trying to hold in their laughter towards Rocky's goofy smile.

"Okay, okay." Rocky swallowed his popcorn. "Never have I ever been outside of Vale."

Three fingers shot down around the room.

"Oh, come on, Rocky. Brooke and Elliot are from Mistral and I've been dragged all over Remnant by my family," Violet scolded the punk.

"It's fairly commonplace to use things you know will get other people's fingers down. It makes you seem like more of an angel compared to them." Rocky winked as he spoke in a half-whisper towards his partner.

Violet shook her head, for what felt like the millionth time that day alone. "It's my turn, and I'll use an actually good one. Never have I ever kissed anyone."

Not a single finger dropped around the room. Violet's jaw dropped. "Seriously? None of you have ever kissed anyone?"

"Neither have you," Elliot pointed out, earning him an encouraging, goofy smile from Rocky.

"Yeah, well, I…" Violet stammered.

The blonde laughed at the girl. "You're fine, Vi. Just messing with you."

"It's your turn, Elliot," Rocky said with a nod, all ten of his fingers still up.

"Never have I ever… been given a nickname. No, wait, Brooke gave me one earlier." Elliot's brow furrowed.

"Wait, no one's ever given you a nickname before?" Violet's eyebrows rose. The sharpshooter was no stranger to nicknames. Rocky had given her a thousand of them over the years.

Elliot shook his head, struggling to find the words he wanted to say. "I… only really had one friend at Sanctum. Pyrrha's more of an address-you-by-your-first-and-last-name type person. My family isn't really one for nicknames either."

"Oh my god, El is even more perfect now." Brooke's brown eyes lit up with realization. "El… Elliot Lukas. El. E-L. That's perfect." The wolf Faunus's wide smile at her nickname rivaled that of the goofy smiles of Rocky.

Elliot smiled as he shook his head. "Let me think of an actual never have I ever. Never have I ever… had a sleepover before."

Rocky and Violet each dropped a finger. Rocky had slept over Violet's house more times than he could count, although the reverse wasn't true, given Rocky's living circumstances. Brooke's hands remained the same, but everyone had pretty much expected that. The shock was Elliot himself.

"You've never had a sleepover?" Rocky asked the blonde boy.

Elliot shrugged. "Parents never allowed it."

"Your turn, Brooke," Violet gave a small nod towards the Faunus.

Brooke paused for a moment, before giving a mischievous smile to Violet. "Never have I ever fired a gun."

Three fingers shot down. Violet, of course, was obvious. Guns were basically her life. Rocky and Elliot had both tried out guns when determining what weapons worked best for them at basic combat school.

"What? You can't be serious!" Violet exclaimed, the sharpshooter unable to believe her ears.

Brooke chuckled slightly as she shook her head. "Never. Anyone in my family who learns to fight does so with an axe. That way, we can help cut down trees with our weapons."

"Next time we're in Vale, after we go clothes shopping to spice up your wardrobe, Ms. LumberBrooke, we are going to my favorite shooting range, and I'm teaching you how to fire a gun." Violet's words seemed to be a bit more of a demand than an offer.

Brooke chuckled as she rolled her eyes a bit. "Sure, Vi."

Three pairs of eyes shot to Rocky, as it was his turn. "Never have I ever had a crush on a girl." Three fingers collapsed into the small half-fists forming.

"You're the worst, Rocky," Violet sighed.

"I like his style," Brooke smirked. "In it to win it. I'm all about that."

"That's why we're partners," Rocky smiled widely.

"We're partners because you started picking off a pack of Beowolves with your crossbow," Brooke shook her head at the punk boy.

Rocky's smile turned into a cocky grin. "A pack that I seem to remember surrounding you. You would have been toast if I hadn't saved your butt with Razorwind."

"Who what now?" Brooke asked.

"Razorwind. My crossbow."

"Other people name their weapons too? I thought that was just me." Brooke blushed a bit as she chuckled to cover up her shame. The wolf Faunus was a bit embarrassed by her lack of knowledge on pretty much everything, as it seemed.

"Oh yeah. I've got Termination, my sniper, and Quake and Typhoon, my pistols," Violet said as she gestured to the guns laying on her bed.

Rocky looked at the purple girl with an eye roll. "I still think those are the _dumbest_ names ever."

Violet playfully shoved the punk. "Okay, well, if you ever run into Termination in the battle field, you will literally be terminated. No one escapes the wrath of Termination. I like the idea that my sniper brings a quick death, a termination. Then my pistols, they still do fatal damage, but it's gonna hurt quite a bit more before it ends, like a natural disaster. Quake and Typhoon. You named your crossbow Razorwind because –."

"Because my arrows are as sharp as razors and rip through the wind like there's no tomorrow," Rocky finished the sentence.

Brooke chuckled at the two bickering friends before turning to Elliot. "What about you?"

Elliot smiled, happy to be included in the conversation. "My swords are named Lightbringer and Nightfall, mostly due to their metals. Lightbringer is made of this _extremely_ reflective silver that can blind enemies temporarily sometimes. Nightfall is made of black steel. I forged them myself at Sanctum. I was originally going to go for a day and night naming scheme, but after I saw how reflective Lightbringer was… Well, the rest is history. What about you?"

Brooke blushed a bit. "It's like, _really_ dumb."

"Oh, come on. All weapon names are silly at the end of the day," Rocky encouraged.

Brooke sighed. "Solitarius Lupus."

Elliot groaned a bit, but turned it into a light chuckle. Rocky and Violet looked at each other, confused. "What?" the two asked at the same time.

"It's an old Mistralian language. It means 'Lone Wolf'. I called it that because I used to work alone on my shifts back home. Just me and Solitarius Lupus against the world." Brooke gave a small smirk at her last comment, glancing at her trusty axe in its carrying form resting on her desk.

"Okay, but that's actually got an old and cool name behind it. Besides, your axe is awesome. I think it's so cool how it collapses like that. I've only ever seen craftsmanship of that caliber in the weapons my family makes." Violet couldn't believe that Brooke would put her weapon down like that. Being the huge weapons nerd that she was, Violet loved all of her teammates' weapons.

Brooke blushed a bit. "I'm honored, honestly. I built it myself, with the help of some family members. We've kind of got the collapsing-axe model down flat. I must say, I've always sort of wanted to hit a grim on the head with the axe while it's in the hand axe form. That little box is heavy. It isn't even really a hand axe. It couldn't cut through butter if it tried."

"Weren't we playing Never Have I Ever?" Rocky pointed out. Everyone had abandoned holding up their hands and fingers long ago.

Violet cursed under her breath. "I don't remember how many fingers I had up."

"I think I've had enough sleepover games for one night," Brooke chuckled.

"Oh, no you haven't," Rocky frowned. "We haven't even gotten to Truth or Dare yet!"

"I thought we canceled that one out?" Elliot asked, feeling nervous at the idea of the classic game.

"How about a modified version. We try to throw popcorn in each other's mouths. If you don't catch it, you have to answer a question," Violet suggested.

Brooke rubbed her hands together. "I am the _best_ at this. Don't expect me to answer a single question, cause I'm going to catch them all."

Violet smirked. "Is that a challenge?"

Brooke's eyes narrowed with a smirk. "Hell yeah."

"You're on Timber… You're on…" Violet reached into the bowl, tossing the first piece of popcorn to the wolf Faunus, who easily caught the salty snack.

* * *

By the end of the night, the members of team BRVE learned that their leader was literally _the best_ at catching food thrown at her with her mouth. Brooke hadn't missed a single piece from the nearly full bowl. They forgot entirely about the condition involving questions, and it devolved into the three taking turns throwing popcorn to Brooke from across their small circle. Brooke caught literally every piece of popcorn thrown at her. Eventually, Brooke had to ask to stop, simply because she was full.

Once the popcorn throwing had stopped, the team decided to head off to bed, fairly exhausted from not only the day's classes, but the antics they had got up to that night as well. Blankets and pillows returned to their respective beds, and silence fell over the dorm room as the members of team BRVE passed out in their beds, one by one.

When she was the only one left awake, Brooke glanced around the room for a second. The sleeping figured of her teammates comforted her. These people, these famous and established people, were her friends. She was their _leader_. Brooke Timber, just one of the many from the Timber family, who had barely ever left her home before a few weeks ago, was now the leader of three very well established individuals. Brooke Timber, the nobody, was leading a team with the son of Glynda Goodwitch, the only child in the Vince family, and the best swordfighter in the world. They respected her and trusted her. Tonight had really made her feel more like friends as opposed to roommates and classmates with the three slumbering figures.

 _Never have I ever had friends. Until now._

With a smile, Brooke's eyes fluttered shut, sending her into a deep sleep.


	8. Chapter 6: Against Time

**Chapter 6**

 **Against Time**

It had been a few weeks since the school year had started. Each of the students had managed to get a grip on how they functioned best as a student, their most effective studying and paper-writing methods, and their favorite classes.

For the members of Team BRVE, these differences had already been determined. Brooke had taken to Grimm Studies from day one, no matter how much Rocky insisted that Professor Port's stories were embellished with lies and exaggerations. She'd been found practicing, with mixed results, the different methods that Port discussed in class. Once she'd personally determined about a fifty percent truth rate, she determined it would be worth it to continue testing the methods for herself and using his class to develop new strategies with Solitarius Lupus.

Elliot had also quickly chosen his favorite class. It came no shock to anyone that Elliot's semblance was beyond useful in Dr. Oobleck's class. It was almost entirely necessary to get the notes down. Elliot offered his team his very carefully taken notes, his split focus allowing him, for the first time in his life, gain an academic advantage in the class. Some of the ruder classmates had snickered at the cross-eyed boy scribbling down notes while looking up at the professor with his other eye, but once the quiz scores for the first quiz of the semester rolled in, no one offered an ill word to Elliot. He'd knew it would only be a matter of time before they started asking for his notes, but he made it a point that he would only give notes to his teammates, and they were not allowed under any circumstances to give them to anyone else.

Violet and Rocky shared a favorite class, as they did with everything. The two best friends found their solace in their combat training class with Professor Goodwitch, each for their own reasons. Violet particularly enjoyed watching Rocky hesitate each time he said the professor's name, being much more careful about slipping up than in his other classes. Rocky enjoyed watching the fights and learning what to do and what to avoid through the actions of his classmates. They could both agree on liking the hands-on aspect of the course, as any chance to show off their precision in combat was instantly a chance taken by the two.

What they decided that they did _not_ enjoy on one particular afternoon, was watching Jaune Arc getting basically destroyed in battle by Cardin Winchester. It had been determined fairly early that Cardin was a massive asshole, but he'd just taken it further and further with each passing day. All four members of team BRVE, as well as team RWBY and what of team JNPR was not on the stage getting horribly beaten in combat, were extremely uncomfortable as they watched Cardin make even worse snarky comments towards Jaune. Jaune wasn't the best fighter, no, but when Cardin made a comment about hoping Jaune got killed by a Beowolf, the group of friends looked at each other nervously. Did this huge bully have a line he would stop at?

* * *

 _No. He has no line_.

Brooke watched from her dinner table as the members of team CRDL surrounded a particularly nervous looking rabbit Faunus. Brooke knew the poor girl well, as the few Faunus in the school who were open about their identities occasionally had a weekly class together to hone their special skills. There weren't exactly many Faunus in the school. Brooke could count the number of Faunus students on one hand, and that was including Blake, who had yet to take off that bow in public.

Brooke was really the only one to notice what was going on. The rest of BRVE, RWBY, and JNPR were listening to one of Nora's stories, with corrections made by Ren. Yet Brooke's eyes were locked in on the rabbit Faunus, Velvet Scarlatina.

Rocky's attention was drawn to his partner when he heard a low growl coming from his left. His eyes flashed to Brooke, who looked like she was ready to tear someone apart. Her ears were low, her face contorting slowly into a snarl. Her hand was hovering over an empty belt for her weapon, which was in reality stored away in her locker. Yet Brooke didn't notice it wasn't there. Rocky doubted she even realized that she was growling.

Then Rocky's eyes followed the line of sight Brooke had. His eyes widened as he watched Cardin reach for Velvet's ear. He could feel the anger radiating of Brooke in a way that rivaled Yang's fiery semblance.

"I told you it was real!" Cardin laughed to his teammates. The other three were perfectly fine with the situation, laughing along and mocking the poor girl.

"What a freak!" Russel exclaimed, throwing his head back in a laugh.

Rocky knew that was a mistake. He also knew he had zero time to stop his teammate from basically flying across the table, which was true. The girl had bolted from her seat before Rocky could even think about raising his hand up to stop the furious wolf Faunus.

The table filled with the three teams turned in shock as Brooke literally ran across the table. Realizing what was going on a second too late, they could only sit and watch as Brooke shoved Cardin away from a very scared looking Velvet, his hand releasing the rabbit ear as he was pushed back.

"You leave her alone," the lumberjack growled, fury in her brown eyes. The girl looked about ready to rip the boy's throat out.

The brute simply smiled and chuckled, standing up to match Brooke. Brooke herself was no small girl, towering over most people at six feet tall. Yet, Cardin was still several inches taller than her, attempting to use this advantage to intimidate her as he glared down at the wolf Faunus. Brooke didn't let this phase her, however, as she maintained her solid glare at the boy.

"And what are you going to do about that, exactly?" the cocky boy asked with a menacing grin.

"What I just did. I'm going to stop you. If you want to get to her, you're going to have to go through me." Brooke's eyes narrowed as the rabbit Faunus still trembled behind her, unsure of if she should run or not.

The brute laughed, his teammates echoing his arrogance. "I could destroy you so fast, mutt."

Rocky was out of his seat instantly. He was _not_ going to sit here and tolerate racist remarks about Brooke. Leaping over the table as Brooke had done, he immediately stood by her side, fury in his eyes. "You will _not_ speak that way about my partner."

"What are you going to do, run and tell mommy?" Cardin laughed, his stance unwavering.

Violet and Elliot were now at the sides of their teammates, staring down the boy that still towered over all of them. "Sit down, Winchester, before you do something stupider than you've already done," Violet sneered, the smaller girl's finger curling out towards the boy. It seemed a little silly to those simply observing the situation, watching a girl that barely hit 5'4" threaten a boy nearly a foot taller than her. The rest of her team was basically around the same height, with Brooke and Elliot barely being half an inch apart, and Rocky only being two inches shorter than them. Yet, the short little girl in a purple dress was standing at the front of the group, ready to jump the huge boy for her teammates.

"Aww, the pup can't take care of herself. She needs her teammates to come to the rescue. Even the short little grape over here," Cardin mocked, not fazed by the accumulating teammates.

Brooke pushed forward to the front of the group of her teammates, and waved away team JNPR, Yang, and Ruby as they attempted to join the blockade. She was still fuming, but spoke in a somewhat-calm tone.

"You and me Cardin. That's what this is about. You and me. We settle this like adults. Sparring match during class tomorrow. You versus me, no extra help. If I win, you, nor _any_ of your teammates, will never lay another finger on or utter a single ill word about any Faunus who attends this school, past, present, or future."

The boy smirked at the idea. "And what do I get if I win?"

Brooke's eyes lowered, her posture straightening. "You get to do anything you want to me."

Silence filled the area. "Anything?" the brute asked.

Brooke gave a firm nod, ignoring the horrified looks of her teammates and her friends. "Anything."

A wide, sly smile filled the brute boy's face. "You have yourself a deal."

* * *

Brooke found herself almost immediately dragged away by her team. Before she knew it, she had been pushed onto her bed and surrounded by not only her team, but also RWBY and JNPR.

"What were you thinking?"

"Have you gone insane?"

"What the hell, Brooke?"

"Are you out of your mind?"

"Brooke, you have got to get out of this somehow."

"Literally, what the fuck just happened."

A thousand criticisms flew at her at once. Violet and Rocky were heading the yelling, although Elliot was simply looking horrified in the background with Blake, Ren, and Pyrrha. Jaune was trying to be reasonable, keeping his voice from raising to a yelling tone, but still giving criticisms on what had just happened. Nora, Ruby, and Yang were all going ballistic, true to nature. Brooke was fine with letting them yell everything out of their systems, until she saw the final critic.

Weiss Schnee.

"Brooke Timber, you are the world's _biggest_ dunce."

The single comment from the heiress put Brooke over the edge. Standing up and shoving them all away, Brooke let out an extremely loud yell of, "EXCUSE ME!"

Stunned, everyone stopped. Brooke _never_ yelled outside of battle. Even when she had gotten in her altercation with Cardin, her voice had maintained a reasonable level of volume.

Brooke's ears curved down in anger, the same anger they had seen her with during her argument with Cardin. "I know what I was doing. I know what I just got myself into. Tomorrow Cardin and I will spar. I will win. End of story. There is nothing to get worked up about here, and I certainly don't need a chorus of people screaming at me right now. We can talk about this if it will make you all feel better, but _reasonably._ Anyone who yells is out of this dorm until this conversation is over. Including those who live here." A glare from the wolf Faunus shot in the direction of a still stunned Violet and Rocky.

A few more seconds of stunned silence and heavy breathing filled the room as everyone calmed down a bit. No one even so much as dared to look at each other, either looking at Brooke or the floor. Rocky broke the tension, speaking as calmly as he could, a very concerned look upon his face.

"Brooke… I… Brooke, what are you going to do if he wins? You promised him anything. He doesn't seem like the type of person to care about personal boundaries."

"I just won't lose then," Brooke said with a shrug.

A chorus of protests started, but Brooke held up a hand and snarled, returning the room to silence. "None of you have seen me spar. None of you _really_ know what I'm capable of. I haven't been called up to the sparring stage yet, in case none of you have noticed. There is a _reason_ for all of that. There is a _reason_ I got into this school. I will not lose."

Weiss crossed her arms, annoyed by Brooke's own arrogance. "We all got into this school for a reason. Passing a test is barely –."

"I didn't pass a test!" Brooke cut her off, throwing her hands into the air. She realized too late what she had blurted out, staring at eleven _very_ shocked faces.

"What?" Rocky asked, highly confused.

"I…" Brooke stammered, staring at the faces that filled her dorm room. "I need to know that I can trust you all before I say this."

A chorus of assurances rang out from the group. After allowing it to go on for a few seconds, ensuring that Brooke heard at least one assurance from each person, she held up her hand, cutting them off again. With a sigh, she gestured to the floor and beds around them. "Everyone take a seat. Doesn't matter where, just take one."

The wolf Faunus strode over to the bookcases that sat beneath the window and hopped onto them, her legs dangling over the front of the bookcases as she sat, waiting for the eleven students to find a place to sit, either on a bed, chair, or the floor. Once everyone was settled, Brooke took a deep breath, preparing to start her story.

"Back home, I worked security for my family's wood farm. If a Grimm broke in, which happened every so often, it was security's job to kill it. About two weeks before school started, I was living my normal life, when an Ursa Major broke in. I killed it, as usual, but I didn't notice the huntsman watching me from the trees above. He was so impressed by what he saw, he recorded the whole thing and sent it to Ozpin. Nearly scared the shit out of me when he spoke up, but he asked me a bunch of questions about how I learned to fight while we were fixing up the hole in the defenses the Grimm had made. I told him the truth, I'd learned my offensive tactics mostly from my father and my older brothers, but my defensive strategy had been self-taught."

"That's what he was interested in. My defensive strategy. Asked me about half a million questions before cutting to the chase and asking me what my semblance was. I explained it to him, with a demonstration." Brooke reached into one of her many pockets in her cargo shorts, pulling out a small, golden stopwatch.

The room watched in silent confusion as Brooke showed the stopwatch to the room. The front of the stopwatch was engraved with Brooke's symbol, a tree in a circle with two axeblades running down the sides of the tree. When Brooke popped it open, the watch began ticking at a steady, normal pace of one tick per second. Brooke began tapping her foot against the bookcase, keeping up with the beat.

"This is what the rest of the world lives in. Normal time. I can just… manipulate that. Like this." Brooke reached for a small dial on the stopwatch, twisting it as the pace of the ticking slowed down. While her foot maintained the pace of one beat per second, Brooke's stopwatch had slowed down ticking so much that it appeared for a few moments that it had broken. When Brooke's foot had tapped the bookcase for the tenth time in a row, the stopwatch clicked.

"My semblance allows me to make my perception of time that slow. I have ten seconds of thinking and adjustments to react to every real second in a fight. It allows me to react to everything. The moment the huntsman found out, he sent the video to Ozpin and called the headmaster. Apparently, what I can do is important, because I was accepted into the school without a second thought. No test, no school, no transcripts. Just the word of a huntsman named Qrow and a video."

"The moment Qrow was able to convince my parents, which took a solid day in itself, I packed my things was sent back to Vale with Qrow. I met Ozpin, who gave me a hotel room in Vale for the remaining two weeks until school was to start. I don't know why they sent me here two weeks early. I was under the impression all students came to Vale first, until I saw the ships from the other regions on the first day. I was told to keep my semblance a secret, even from my teammates, until I was sure I could absolutely trust them. I was told I'd be removed from the combat class randomizer until I informed the others that I was ready. It's still kind of… baffling to me. I know that my semblance is really helpful, but so many others have just as powerful, if not more powerful semblances. I don't know why it all had to be such a big secret, but it did."

"I don't want to hide anymore. I could easily take down Cardin. He's so predictable, and I doubt he'd be able to understand my semblance without it being very specifically explained to him. I'm going to fight him tomorrow, and I am going to win. That's that."

"Brooke, what if he does though? What if he does beat you?" Violet asked, her purple eyes still filled with anxiety.

"That's not an option," Brooke growled.

"No one's invincible, Brooke," Pyrrha finally commented, knowing full well how hypocritical that must feel to everyone in the room.

"I'm not talking about me being cocky about fighting or whatever. I'm talking about how out of control he's gotten. It _isn't_ an option to lose. I cannot _stand_ that boy's comments. You are all very great people and none of you have any problem with me, but unfortunately there are people at this school that see me as nothing more than these!" Brooke pointed at the floppy brown ears that topped her head. The silence in the room seemed to triple. Brooke had always tried to brush off the side comments from Cardin and certain other students, but tonight had pushed her over the edge. She'd had _enough_.

"It isn't an option because I will not allow that boy to run around saying those things and pulling on people's ears and stepping on people's tails and treating us like second class people. I know the rest of the world isn't that kind, I know very well. But if I can stop it, I will. This is me _stopping him_. I don't have the _luxury_ of the possibility of losing. Not just for me, but for Velvet, and every other Faunus in this school. I can take care of _myself_." Brooke's ending comments sneered as she snapped her stopwatch shut, which was still beating at the slower pace, as she shoved it back into her pocket.

"Now, if everyone is done criticizing me, I'm going for a run." Brooke leaped down from the bookshelf, headed towards the door. People silently moved out of the way as she walked. Before she put her hand on the doorknob, she turned and spoke one last time. "I'll be back before curfew."

Brooke shut the door behind her, leaving a still silent, still stunned room of students. Shaking her head for a moment in an attempt to clear it, she broke out into a jog as she headed down the hallway.

* * *

Brooke sighed as she approached the office door. Mounted firmly on the door was a golden plaque that read _Professor Glynda Goodwitch_. Hesitating for a moment, Brooke thought about what she was doing. _No. I have to do this._

Three _knocks_.

"Come in," Professor Goodwitch's voice rang out from the office.

Brooke placed her hand on the doorknob and turned. The professor was sitting at her desk, glancing over some documentation on her scroll. Looking up, the woman gave a rare small smile at the wolf Faunus who was approaching her desk. She closed her scroll and gestured to the chair on the other side of the desk. "Miss Timber, please sit."

Brooke sat down in the chair and looked at the still slightly smiling woman.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" the professor asked.

"I… I'm ready to fight in combat class. I'm ready to be put in the roster for the randomizer."

Glynda's eyes narrowed. "Are you sure, Brooke? You don't seem very sure."

Brooke's ears instinctively drooped a little bit, knowing that Glynda had caught the shakiness in her voice. The wolf Faunus straightened her posture and perked her ears up, giving her most reassuring nod she could muster. "I'm one hundred percent sure."

The professor nodded in response. "Very well. If I may, why the sudden change of heart? Just earlier today when we talked, you insisted on staying off the roster for a little bit longer. This whole visit comes to me as a bit of a surprise."

Brooke took a deep breath. She couldn't tell Professor Goodwitch the truth. There was a firm rule against grudge fights in the classroom, and the bet with Cardin would certainly count as that. Time slowed down around her as she scrambled her brain for ideas. Glynda wouldn't even notice how long Brooke had taken to think of something.

A lightbulb went off in Brooke's head as time reverted to normal around her. The wolf Faunus spoke, barely a second of real time having passed between her and the professor while she thought.

"I've been doing a lot of thinking today. Well, I've been thinking about part of this for a while. I… I've wondered since the day teams were formed why Professor Ozpin chose me to be the leader of team BRVE. I'm on a team with three incredibly famous fighters, deemed the best in each of their skillsets. Yet, Ozpin chose me, a nobody, to lead them. It occurred to me today that the reason why I see myself is a nobody is because nobody's seen me yet. No one's seen me in action. No one's seen Brooke Timber, the fighter, outside of my team. Even they only saw a tiny bit at initiation. I want to be myself, as genuinely as possible. Hiding isn't going to let me achieve that."

Brooke wasn't lying about that. She had been thinking about that stuff lately. Today's events had pushed her over the edge. She wanted to be Brooke Timber, the Faunus who stood up to racism. This talk with Glynda would have happened eventually, regardless. At least, that's what Brooke tried to reassure herself with in her thoughts.

Professor Goodwitch's eyebrows rose at Brooke's statements. "You are sure about this?"

"I don't see the point in keeping me as some secret weapon. I'm no better than anyone else here, it feels ridiculous for me to hide. I am sure."

Glynda's eyes watched the girl carefully. "You aren't some sort of secret weapon, Brooke. Do you know why the staff agreed you should not be fighting so early on?"

Brooke's ears lowered as she shook her head.

"I fear that this isn't my place to tell. You will have to ask Professor Ozpin himself, although at another time. He has a very important meeting tonight."

Brooke gave a small nod to her professor.

"Is there anything else on your mind?" Professor Goodwitch asked.

Brooke's mind raced with a million thoughts. The racism by team CRDL. Velvet being harassed. Blake's bow. Weiss's attitudes towards her that she was _sure_ was stemmed from low-key racism, although Brooke was yet to attain proof of this. The fact that _no one_ , not even Violet, knew Rocky's semblance, and he wouldn't talk to anyone about it. Elliot's obviously untreated depression.

Not even a single second had passed.

"No, that is all," Brooke said with a nod.

"Very well, I'll put you on the roster for tomorrow. Have a good night, Miss Timber."

Brooke stood up from her seat and headed for the door.

"Miss Timber?"

Brooke turned to face the desk once more.

"If you ever need to talk about anything, my door is always open." The professor was giving another one of her rare smiles.

Brooke returned the gentle smile. "Thank you."

Brooke left the office, wondering if Professor Goodwitch had acted that way because she was Brooke Timber, or if it was because she was her son's partner and leader. Could she tell everything that was going on? Could she tell how fast she was thinking despite the fact that no time had actually passed at all?

The Faunus shook her head as she made her way to the elevator. No one could ever tell what speed Brooke was observing the world at. That much, she was sure of. No one could ever beat her in a race against time. Especially not Cardin.


	9. Chapter 7: For Honor

**AN:**

Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Have a good day!

Whatever applies to you, I hope it's a great one!

* * *

 **Chapter 7**

 **For Honor**

Glynda Goodwitch's classroom was unconventional. The huge auditorium was built to hold school-wide assemblies, graduation ceremonies, and other massive events. On a day-to-day basis, the auditorium was used as a classroom for combat class, with students in the stands watching single, double, or team fights on the massive stage below.

Glynda had arrived backstage for her afternoon combat class with the first years. The professor sighed as she attached the wireless microphone to her ear. The first-year course was most certainly Glynda's least favorite. Arrogance, a disregard for rules, and ignorance on basic combat concepts seemed to be rampant in the first-year course, each and every year. The moment she walked onto the main stage, she stopped dead in her tracks. The stands were completely packed.

All of the combat classes were open to the various years, typically allowing for ambitious underclassmen to observe their older peers in combat, perhaps picking up a new strategy or two along the way. The same applied to the classes with underclassmen. If rumor had it that a particularly talented underclassman, such as Pyrrha Nikos or Elliot Lukas, was scheduled to fight, some upperclassmen would show up to see what they were capable of doing. The only other typical situation that Glynda could think of that would lead an upperclassman to attend one of the underclass combat classes was if there was a set of siblings enrolled at the school, and the older wanted to see how the younger was doing.

Yet, despite these typical conditions, no one was scheduled to fight today. Today was either fights by request or a randomizer, so there was absolutely no guarantee of a skilled underclassman fighting. The only siblings in this class Glynda could think of were Yang Xiao Long and Ruby Rose, yet they were both in the same year, negating that option. Not like the second option was even reasonable, as the sibling situation usually led to, at a maximum, the team of the older sibling attending.

The _entire school_ sat in the stands. Not a single team of upperclassmen, not a small group who wanted to see a particular fight. There was not a single empty seat in the house. The moment Glynda had walked in, the excited chattering of the huge room had fell silent.

Glynda's eyes narrowed as she spoke out to the crowd. "What is going on here?"

Silence hung in the room.

"You are all here to observe. The entire school is here to observe the first-year combat course. I know there's something else going on here. Would anyone care to speak up?" The professor's glares around the room found faces staring at the ground. Glynda scowled. She pointed her crop out at a second-year leader sitting in the front row. "Miss Adel. What is the meaning of all of this?"

Team BRVE was sitting further up in the stands. Brooke's heart was beating a million miles a minute. The last thing she wanted was her professor to lose trust in her because of this. It wasn't her fault the _entire school_ had gotten word of the match going down today. Everyone either wanted to see an ignorant, first-year bully and racist get beat by a Faunus, or, in a much more silent minority, wanted to see an example of human superiority in action. When Brooke had entered combat class to find literally the _entire school_ staring at her, she suddenly realized everything that was going on.

Coco Adel looked up at the professor in slight shock. After seeing the professor's continued glares demanding an answer, the brown-haired fashionista stood up and spoke. "We're simply here to observe, Professor. One of the upperclassmen got the idea to come visit the first-years and inspire moral. Before anyone knew it, the whole school was in on it. I would tell you who started it, but on something this big of a scale, I can't say I know whose idea it was originally."

Glynda's eyes narrowed once more, eyes scanning the girl for signs of lying in her body language. Deciding that the girl's explanation was likely not the truth, but was probably the best explanation that she would get, the professor gave a small nod. "Very well. However, normal rules of spectating do apply. Anyone who gets rowdy is out of here, no second chances."

The professor sighed as Coco took her seat once again. Glynda glanced up towards the section where the first-years sat. Something was going on here. That was certainly for sure.

"Do we have any volunteers for today's sparring match?"

Brooke Timber rose from her seat. Glynda's eyes narrowed. The brown-haired girl had something up her sleeve, that was for sure. Glynda just wasn't entirely sure yet. Had Brooke convinced the entire school to come see her fight because Brooke assumed she got into the school because she was _just that good_ , despite it being so far from the truth?

"I volunteer." The wolf Faunus spoke proudly and confidently, a room full of heads turning to look at her.

"Very well. Do you have an opponent in mind, or shall we use the randomizer?"

"I challenge Cardin Winchester." Brooke's voice boomed throughout the room.

The leader of team CRDL stood, only a few rows over from Brooke. He looked to Brooke, and then to the professor. "I accept the challenge," Cardin said, his eyes narrowing with pride.

Glynda glanced between the two students. Brooke Timber, a skilled and talented Faunus. Cardin Winchester, a brute with, based on reports from other teachers, racist tendencies. Between the setup of the volunteer and the challenged, and the huge audience that surrounded the stage, there was absolutely no way that this was anything less than a grudge match.

Glynda had heavily enforced the rule of no grudge matches since she had become the professor of combat courses at Beacon Academy. When she was a student here, many years ago, the combat courses were basically nothing more than daily grudge matches between the same sets of students. She had never once considered lifting this rule in all her years of teaching. Yet, as she stared at the two extremely different students who stood in this massive crowd, a small voice rung in the back of her head.

 _This isn't for a grudge. This is something much greater than that. This is for honor._

The professor sighed, closing her eyes for a moment before looking back up at the two standing students. "Miss Timber, Mr. Winchester, I trust you are both very much aware that grudge matches are not permitted in this classroom."

Brooke's heart tensed up. _Please_.

"I need you both to assure to me that what is occurring here today is not a grudge match, and is purely a lighthearted friendly match between two classmates. Can I get vocal confirmation from both of you that what I am saying is the case?"

Every muscle in Brooke's body relaxed at once. Professor Goodwitch was actually letting this happen.

"I promise you, Professor. This is not a grudge match," the wolf Faunus said with a respectful nod towards her professor, in both conformation and thanks.

"No grudges here. Just two pals wanting a friendly spar." Cardin forced the _fakest_ smile towards Brooke, who returned the extremely fake grin.

Glynda nodded. "Very well. Come down onto the stage, and we will begin."

* * *

The two opponents stood facing each other, weapons drawn as they stared each other down. This was it, the moment that almost everyone in the school had been whispering about all day.

Brooke versus Cardin. Faunus versus human. Respect versus ignorance. Honor versus pride.

Brooke looked over her opponent very carefully. His hair was a shade of brown so light it almost appeared to be orange. The boy's arrogant smile reflected the same light that reflected off of his silver armor, much darker than the armor Brooke's armored teammate donned. The armor was accented with gold borders, as well as a large, golden bird in the middle of his chestplate. His mace was gently resting on one shoulder. The boy was so strong he only needed to hold it with one hand.

Brooke was not as impressive as the indigo-eyed boy. Her brown hair was cropped, and quite frankly, a little bit messy compared to the carefully cut and styled hair of her opponent. She wore no armor, with nothing to protect her skin than the thin clothing she wore. Her classic brown flannel had been rolled up to her elbows, offering even less protection than normal. Brooke, to an outsider, looked much smaller and much less prepared than her opponent. Yet, as the wolf Faunus held her huge axe, which was nearly as tall as her, in both of her hands, she still looked like a force to be reckoned with.

Glynda stepped between the two opponents. She took a moment to tap her earpiece, muting the microphone it bore. "Alright, you two. This is going to be a clean, fair match. Is that understood?"

Brooke gave a sharp nod. "Understood."

"Crystal clear," Cardin nodded.

"Don't ever, ever expect that I will allow something like this to occur _ever_ again. You've got one shot at this. Whatever this is for, make it count." Glynda tapped her microphone once again, turning the microphone back on. "Miss Timber, are you ready?"

Brooke placed a foot back, bringing her axe forward into a fighting stance. "I am ready."

"Mr. Winchester, are you ready?"

The brute swung his mace off his shoulder, holding it firmly with both of his hands. Cardin mimicked Brooke's stance, pushing one foot back. "I'm ready."

Glynda gave a firm nod as she stepped back, leaving the two opponents to glare at each other as the professor stepped out of the immediate fighting zone.

"You may begin."

The arena fell dead silent as the two opponents began to circle each other. Brooke was watching carefully, observing Cardin's movements and looking for signs of fight. Cardin was much less observant, simply waiting for the best time to strike.

Cardin didn't know a thing about Brooke's fighting style. She fought with a double-bladed axe, but he had suddenly realized that she'd never fought during combat class before. The only person to wield that type of weapon that he knew of was Professor Port, and well, he hadn't paid attention in that class at all. Furrowing his brow, Cardin swung his mace forwards while the two were mid-step in an attempt to throw Brooke off.

The moment Brooke saw the muscles in Cardin's arm flex to extend his weapon, time slowed down. The Faunus analyzed the angle the mace was soaring through the air at. Determining it was meant to hit her chest, Brooke pulled her axe to block the mace with her blades. Her feet landed on the ground with a _thud_ in Brooke's slow mind, kicking her semblance out as the world resumed normally.

Cardin's mace made impact with the blades of Solitarius Lupus. The boy scowled at the _clank_ noise that came from metal clashing with metal. Pulling his mace back, the boy snarled at the wolf Faunus, who simply glared at him with her large, brown eyes.

Brooke tossed her heavy axe backwards and leaped up into the air, contorting her body into a backflip. As she soared through the air, she sucked in her gut with a sharp breath as Cardin swung his mace, very narrowly missing the wolf Faunus.

Brooke landed back on her feet, catching her axe in the air. The two opponents now stood several feet apart from each other, Cardin standing tall, briefly resting his mace on his shoulder as he watched the Faunus. Brooke's stance was low to the ground, tightly gripping her axe with both of her hands.

Brooke's wolf ears twitched slightly. Cardin was looking down on her, from both their natural height difference and Brooke's lowered stance. With a snarl, she pushed her foot back a bit more, leaping forwards into the air as she swung her axe towards the brute boy.

 _Tall, large, and brainless. Like an Ursa. Or a tree._

Time slowed down as Brooke soared through the air. Cardin attempted to raise his mace with his left arm, but his reach would never make it to Brooke's body in time by the time she reached him. Instead of worrying about defenses, Brooke focused carefully on the cracks in Cardin's armor. Noticing a chink in the armor below his right arm, Brooke adjusted her hold on her axe to aim very precisely for the gap.

 _SLAM!_

Brooke shoved her feet forwards as her axe hit Cardin's unprotected body. While the brute was already stunned from the impact, Brooke used the opportunity to launch herself back by pressing her legs against his chestplate and leaping backwards. The boy tumbled backwards, landing on his butt as his mace skidded away from his reach. Brooke's leap led her to complete another flip, using her axe to center her balance as she tumbled through the air. Through the precariously slow movements that Brooke saw, she managed to land firmly on her feet, unscathed by her flashy little trick.

Time resumed normally. Cardin shook his head as he looked up at the girl standing about 10 feet away from him. She lifted her axe onto her shoulder, mimicking the boy's typical cocky stance with his mace.

"What, Winchester? Can't land a hit?" Brooke smirked.

The crowd was sitting on the edge of their seats. Most of the first years knew how hot-headed Cardin could be. Being taunted by a Faunus mimicking his stance like this would most _certainly_ put him over the edge.

It worked.

Cardin stood up, snarling as Brooke began to spin her axe above her head. _Showy mutt._ The brute darted for his mace, grabbing as he charged forwards towards the wolf Faunus. Sending her axe smashing down into the ground, leaping into the air as the base of the axe made impact.

Cardin began to stumble, and unfortunately, so did Glynda. She quickly recovered, still standing in the background of the stage. She was very familiar that sometimes special moves like that could affect her. Yet, she was used to this appearing in certain students with semblances that affected their environments. She had _not_ been expecting this move with Brooke Timber, of all students.

Brooke's feet hit the ground with a _thud_. Cardin, still in a stumbling daze, was looking around, trying to get his bearings on what was going on. The Faunus took her opportunity to charge forward, slamming her axe into his stomach, which was unprotected by his chestplate.

The boy howled out in pain, taking a severe hit to his aura. Glancing up at the large screen above them, Brooke noticed she had barely depleted it, even with that heavy hit. Her aura, of course, was unscathed, but her opponents had just now dropped below 80%.

Brooke's attention was snapped back to a yelling Cardin, who was attempting to swing his mace once again. Leaping to the side, Brooke dodged yet another one of his hits. Brooke furrowed her brow as she crouched, another swing soaring over her head, less than an inch away from the tops of her sensitive ears. She felt the wind created by the mace fly through her fur, sending a chill down her spine. Cardin began yelling wildly, enraged further and further with each missed swing.

* * *

The crowd watched in amazement at the spectacle below. Brooke kept up the pattern of dodging, rolling, leaping, and striking, while Cardin continuously flailed around, missing each and every blow. Whispers echoed throughout the crowd.

"How's she dodging all of that?"

"That literally took a hair off her, that's how close that was."

"He's going _insane_."

"This is insane!"

"This girl is intense."

"She's going to get _way_ too cocky and lose in one hit."

"No way, there's no way he's thinking straight with the way he's yelling, all infuriated. She could easily keep this up."

The remaining members of team BRVE heard the varying conversations around them. Glancing anxiously at each other, they held their tongues at the questions whispered throughout the crowd. Brooke had specifically asked her teammates and friends who had been in the dorm room the night before when she explained her semblance to not utter a single word about it to any other person at Beacon. Brooke's semblance was still a wildcard to almost every student at the school, giving them a leg up in the matches that involved her.

Rocky tried to stop listening to the commotion around him and focus on the battle below. He'd seen several, small snippets of his partner's fighting style on initiation day, but nothing quite as intense as the current fight going down below him. Brooke seemed to use Cardin himself to fight him. Once the Faunus had manipulated him into striking, she would narrowly dodge his attack. After either confusing him, or sending him into a fury, she would take the opportunity to strike. Cardin was either too infuriated or too stupid to realize she was literally just chipping away at his aura like this. Rocky assumed it might as well be a combination of both.

Things were playing out just as Brooke had suggested. Cardin wasn't able to land a single hit on the quick-footed lumberjack. Brooke flaunted around the boy, with impressive leaps, rolls, and dashes, as the brute clashed about furiously. The closest Cardin would ever get was his mace smashing against the blades of Solitarius Lupus, but only when Brooke couldn't dodge the blow entirely. All the same, not a single bit of Brooke's aura had dropped, while Cardin's was dropping at a steady rate of 5% with each and every blow.

Violet sat on the edge of her seat. Brooke had to have assured her a thousand times between the previous night and earlier in the day that she would have no problem beating the bigot, but Violet still had doubts about Brooke's arrogance. Even now, watching as her leader flawlessly dodged the swings of the mighty mace, the sharpshooter had a hard time believing it could really be _this easy_.

Elliot was feeling fairly similarly. Although Elliot had not been as vocal as Violet about his concerns (as if he was ever as vocal as Violet on any given day), he still feared that something would go wrong. The boy's anxiety levels were fairly high on a day-to-day basis, and this match had him bouncing in his seat and gasping at each and every dodge.

Rocky's focus shifted from the battle to his mother. He'd been seriously shocked this entire event had been allowed to occur in the first place. He was _certain_ when the entire school flooded into the auditorium that she'd never permit this to occur. Yet, here he was, watching as his team leader landed another blow on Cardin's stomach.

* * *

Brooke glanced up at the scoreboard for half a second. Cardin still had 40% aura, while Brooke's aura meter still remained entirely full. The wolf Faunus darted her attention back to her opponent, who too had taken a second to glance at the meters.

The girl lowered her stance to the ground. She had to finish this, and soon. The longer this went on, the more tired she was getting, and the less observant she would be when she activated her semblance. This boy had a _lot_ of aura. She simply had to get the boy's aura down to under 15%.

Time slowed down. Cardin was starting to charge her, yet again. The Faunus took a moment to consider her options. She could try to keep up with her current strategy, but she highly doubted she could manage to hit him five more times like that and still remain unscathed. She _would_ win, no matter what, but a flawless victory was _extremely_ appealing to the girl.

The wolf Faunus's eyes darted around the room, calculating her other options. The boy was still approaching (although very slowly), and Brooke needed a cold, hard plan. As her eyes whipped around the room, her brain ran through some quick estimations. After deciding what she had was her most likely option for hitting him down in one final blow before he had the chance to lay a finger on her, time snapped back into normal.

Brooke smirked.

The boy was charging at her, full speed with his mace ready to swing. Cardin had _enough_ of this dodging _bullshit_. He'd been promised a fight. He didn't think this was a fight, with how Brooke was acting. She _had_ to be cheating, one way or another. _No one_ could be this good at avoiding blows.

The mace hit the sharpened steel of the double-bladed axe. The wolf Faunus was still smirking as she twisted her arms around, catching the blades of her axe in the wiring of the mace. With a heavy shove, the mace flew out of the brute boy's arms, scraping across the ground.

"What's the matter, Winchester? Can't land a hit?" Brooke's smirk grew wider as she spun her axe around, Solitarius Lupus landing with a _boom_ at her side.

The boy glared at her and snarled, his hands on his knees as he caught his breath. "Why don't you fight and stop pussyfooting around!" Cardin yelled, sneering as he spoke.

"This is a fight! Not my fault you can't seem to catch me!" the wolf Faunus snickered. "Come and get me, Winchester!" The lumberjack picked up her axe, spun around on her heel, and chucked it into the wall, the mighty metal handle sticking out of the well-worn wall, about ten feet up in the air. Giving a small, overly feminine wave over her shoulder, Brooke took off, running for the wall.

Cardin was so infuriated, he didn't even bother to pick up his mace. He simply charged, roaring as he ran after the girl. With longer legs, he took longer strides, but the skinnier and lightly clad girl was much faster in their sprint. He didn't seem to care. All he wanted was to deck that arrogant little _mutt_ in her face.

Brooke was only a few feet ahead of Cardin, but it was all she needed. Once Cardin had chased her to her axe, the girl leaped up into the air, grabbing onto the handle of her axe. Swinging herself up, her feet landed on the base, easily supporting her body weight. Cardin, on the other hand, hadn't noticed what Brooke had done. She was gone before he could react, and once she was gone, he smacked _directly_ into the wall.

Brooke glanced up. Cardin had 30% aura. Swinging herself back down, she kicked the already-stunned brute in the head, sending him skidding across the ground on his ass. Another fast glance showed 25% remained. Tugging Solitarius Lupus from the wall, Brooke landed on the ground, axe in hand. Cardin only looked up from his stunned state at the last second to see two metal blades crashing into his head, wielded by a wildly grinning wolf Faunus.

 _Brooke Timber: 100%_

 _Cardin Winchester: 10%_

Glynda stepped forwards into the spotlights, standing next to the two fighters. "That's the match. Congratulations, Miss Timber. It has been a _very_ long time since I've seen a flawless victory." The professor gave a nod to the victor.

The audience went wild. Applause and cheering drowned out Brooke's every thought. Looking around at the crowd, Brooke's eyes caught the most excited audience members, the Faunus of the school. A chant was started by Brooke's team, to which the rest of the first years, aside from team CRDL, quickly caught onto.

"Brooke's the best! Brooke's the best! Brooke's the best!"

It didn't take long for the rest of the school to catch onto the chant.

Cardin blinked, still sitting on the ground, his world spinning around him. He looked up to see Brooke collapsing her axe. The wolf Faunus held out her hand, offering to help him up. Cardin sneered, backing away from the outstretched hand.

"I'm not touching you, you fucking _mutt_."

The crowd went dead silent. The chant cut off midsentence, the entire school in shock. Cardin's face went bright red, realizing how close the professor was. His statement had picked up on the microphone and been blasted over the loudspeakers. The entire school had heard it. More importantly, Professor Goodwitch had heard it.

Brooke's face fell from the gentle smile, her shoulders stiffening. The girl dropped her hand, simply blinking at the boy. Her ears drooped, falling nearly flat against her skull.

Glynda's face twisted into horror. She couldn't believe that this boy had the _audacity_ to make such a remark, let alone _directly in front of her_. "Mr. Winchester! Racism is not tolerated at this school. Get up, pick up your weapon, and apologize to Miss Timber."

Cardin still looked like a deer who had been caught in headlights. He did not move.

"Mr. Winchester! Now!"

Cardin stood up, rather slowly as he winced at his weakened aura. Once he did fully stand, he stared at the ground as he muttered a half-assed "Sorry."

"That is not even remotely acceptable for an apology, Mr. Winchester. You are a student at Beacon Academy, not kindergarten. Look her in the eye, and give a _proper_ apology."

Cardin looked up and looked into Brooke's eyes. The deep chocolate eyes showed one emotion: disappointment. "I'm sorry, Brooke. That was uncalled for and very rude of me."

"Thank you," the wolf Faunus said with a nod.

"You and I are going to have a long talk in my office, Mr. Winchester, about what is appropriate if you wish to remain a student at this academy. Pick up your weapon, this is happening immediately." Glynda waved her hand towards the mace that still lay on the ground. As Cardin shuffled off, head down, to retrieve his weapon, the professor turned to Brooke once more. "Congratulations, Miss Timber. You fought hard and well."

The crowd was still watching, the only sounds filling the silent arena being the clicking of the professor's heels as she led Cardin backstage. Brooke turned, alone on the stage, to face the crowd, her hand-axe still not tucked away in her belt, but rather still being held in her hand. She looked around at the entirely silent student body, searching for one specific person. Her eyes locked with Velvet's. She was scared.

 _I did this to protect those who couldn't defend themselves. I_ succeeded _, no matter what just occurred here. I will continue to protect them. On my honor._

Brooke threw both of her fists into the air in a celebratory manor as she flashed a giant smile and her ears perked back up. She had won. No matter what, she had won. She had remained unscathed against a person who assumed he was leagues better than her just because of her race. The crowd went wild, cheering and yelling once again. The chant started back up. Brooke pumped her fists once again, smiling as she saw her team running down from their seats to meet her on the stage.

Brooke caught Velvet's eye again. She was yelling and cheering with her team, smiling wider than Brooke had ever seen the rabbit Faunus smile. A strike of pain struck Brooke's heart, despite her own smile. She knew this was so far from over. It had been a symbolic and hollow victory at best.


	10. Chapter 8: Consequences

**Chapter 8**

 **Consequences**

Violet woke up, her eyes fluttering open. She blinked a few times, her eyes adjusting to the artificial light in the room. The purple girl sat up, rubbing her eyes as realized something. _Why does my throat feel like it's on fire?_ Glancing around the room, she saw Rocky and Elliot still fast asleep on the other side of the room, and Brooke curled up, partially in the dark windowsill and partially on the bookshelf that sat below it. Her legs were curled up in front of her as she stared out the window next to her, looking particularly sad.

Seeing her leader reminded her why her throat hurt so much. She'd been screaming and cheering at the match yesterday. _The match yesterday_ …

"Hey there, sleepyhead." Brooke glanced away from the window and looked at the sharpshooter.

The wolf Faunus was still wearing her pajamas, although Violet felt that they barely qualified as such. Violet was pretty much convinced that Brooke only owned black tank tops, as they were the basis for not only her daily combat clothing, but her pajamas as well. A pair of brown sweatpants hung at her waist, although at a slightly lower point than her normal cargo pants. Violet had always assumed that Brooke's clothes fit her well, but as purple eyes were drawn to the one-inch gap between the tank top and the sweatpants, it was clear that the clothes were one-size too small for the Faunus. Violet couldn't help but stare at the gap, her sleepy eyes trying to figure out what she was saying.

 _Are those… abs?_

"You okay, Vi?" Brooke asked, drawing the sharpshooter out of her trance.

Violet shook her head, rubbing her eyes a bit more. She tried to speak, but at first no voice came out. She coughed a little, flexing her sore throat muscles. "Yeah, just groggy," the purple girl finally managed to croak.

Brooke chuckled a little, her wolf ears bouncing with her chest as she swung her legs over the edge of the bookshelf. "I'll get you some water. You sound like you could use a glass."

Violet feebly nodded, pulling her legs out from underneath the covers and sitting cross-legged on her bed. She watched as her leader made her way into the bathroom to get a cup of water. The purple girl pushed her slightly messy hair back with one hand. She coughed again, which only lead to her throat hurting more.

Brooke returned from the bathroom, holding the glass of water. She handed it off to her purple-clad teammate, who chugged the whole thing in one go. The wolf Faunus sat down on her own bed, facing Violet.

Violet cleared her throat once again, placing the empty glass down on her bedside table. "Thanks. I needed that."

"I wish my throat was the only thing that hurt from yesterday," Brooke said with a sigh, her ears drooping.

Violet was shocked. "You're hurting? He didn't even lay a finger on you!"

"I guess I overexerted my semblance. I'm exhausted." Brooke shrugged.

Violet chuckled a little. "That was pretty obvious. You passed out almost immediately after we got into the room yesterday afternoon. Sleeping for over…" Violet glanced at the clock "13 hours didn't do it for you? Besides, if you're so exhausted"

Brooke shook her head. "Not like, sleep exhaustion, but aura exhaustion. My mind gets super slow when I use my semblance too much. Not slow in the way my semblance makes things slow. Everything gets super sluggish, like my world is made of jello."

"So, if you slow down time too much, time gets slow?" Violet cocked an eyebrow at her team leader.

Brooke furrowed her brow. "I never really thought of it like that…"

Violet chuckled a little. "I take it you're not up for our scheduled visit to Vale?"

"Crap, that was today."

"Yep."

Brooke glanced towards the window. Focusing back on Violet, she spoke. "No, I don't think I'll be going out today. I don't really think I want to leave the dorm today, to be honest." Wolf ears flattened against the cropped brown hair that topped the girl's head.

Violet was immediately alert. "Brooke, what's wrong?"

"I…" the wolf Faunus looked at the window again for just a moment, which Violet caught onto. "Don't look. Please."

Violet was off of her bed in an instant.

"Vi, don't look. You're just going to get worked up."

The purple girl ignored the Faunus's remarks, walking around the beds and heading for the window. When she finally saw what Brooke had been staring at, she gasped.

The dorm window provided a nice view of the courtyard. Yet, the view today was anything but nice. The typically beautiful courtyard was stained by a particularly crude piece of graffiti, which consisted of huge letters written in messy red paint.

 _ANIMALS ARE NOT PEOPLE._

Violet didn't even notice her hands were turning into fists.

Rocky stirred, rolling over in his bed as his eyes opened. "What the hell are you two doing? It's 6:00 a.m., on a Saturday!"

"Get up and look at this." Violet's eyes did not leave the graffiti, ignoring his question and annoyed tone.

Rocky noticed Violet's hands forming into fists. He glanced over at Brooke, who had thrown herself into her pillow, trying to block out the world. Something was _very_ wrong.

The punk, who looked a little silly with his usual mohawk flattened against his head at the early hour, chucked the blankets off his body. The gust of wind caused by the blankets hit Elliot's face, whose eyes also flickered open. He blinked a few times, before looking over at the clock.

"What's going on?" the boy of light asked.

Rocky had arrived at the window. The punk had no words for what he saw. Violet simply waved her partner over, eyes still locked on the hideous graffiti on the ground.

Cautiously, Elliot rose from bed, joining his teammates at the window. His reaction was similar, silence at first, as he absorbed the nature of what he saw before him. Thinking for a moment, the blonde boy turned towards his leader.

"Brooke? Are you okay?" Elliot spoke softly, breaking his other teammates from their trance. The three turned to face their leader, who was still buried in her own pillow.

Brooke slowly lifted herself up from her bed. She didn't appear upset or to be crying, but just looked _numb_. She didn't speak at first, simply staring back at her teammates, her mouth gaping open as she struggled to find words.

"It was meant for me." Brooke's eyes fell to the ground.

"What do you mean?" Rocky asked.

Brooke stood up and shuffled her way towards the window. "It's on the ground, directly beneath our window. Everyone knows about the argument two days ago. _Everyone_ knows about the fight. Someone wasn't happy. I've made this worse. I've made this so much worse."

The three teammates looked anxiously at each other, their leader staring at the graffiti out the window.

Elliot stepped forward, placing his hand gently on Brooke's shoulder. "You didn't make things worse, Brooke. What makes you think that?"

"I'm so stupid. I thought by stopping Cardin I'd be stopping the worst racist at the school. He wasn't the worst. He's just the most vocal. I've given the silent ones a reason to speak out now. I gave them the reason to do this." Brooke lowered her head, staring at the bookshelf.

"This isn't your fault, Brooke. This isn't your fault in the slightest," Elliot said, trying to assure his leader, to little avail.

"Whoever did this is _really_ stupid, bigotry aside. Not only are they stupid enough to think that, but they're also stupid enough to think they could get away with this. Beacon does _not_ take these things lightly." Rocky pulled his scroll from his pocket.

Brooke looked up at her partner. "This type of thing has happened before?"

Rocky sighed. "Unfortunately. Every once in a while, there will be a hate crime on campus, but only once every few years. Each time the administration does not stop until the perpetrator is discovered and expelled. I'm going to call my mom right now. This will be gone by the time the rest of the school wakes up."

Violet grabbed Brooke's hand, leading the Faunus over to the sharpshooter's bed. Elliot closely followed, each of the partners sitting on either side of their leader. Brooke remained silent, staring at the floor while she continued to contemplate everything that had occurred in the past three days.

Rocky's scroll was ringing. He was using the video call option, holding the scroll up to show his face. Eventually, there was an answer. The responding camera was showing a dark ceiling, no face in sight.

"Richard? Why are you calling me at 6:15 on a Saturday?" Glynda's voice came across the scroll, sleepy, cranky, and annoyed.

"We've got a bit of a problem," Rocky said to his mother, switching the camera on his phone to show the view out the window.

There were a few moments of silence. "I'll be there as soon as I can. Send a picture of that to Ozpin." The dark ceiling on the call changed to a light ceiling just before the call disconnected.

Rocky leaned over the window, snapping a picture and sending it to the headmaster. "She'll likely be here within ten minutes. She has zero tolerance for these acts."

Brooke wasn't speaking, still staring at the ground. Violet was rubbing the Faunus's arm, trying to remind her that she wasn't alone. Elliot was sitting next to Brooke, cross-legged on the bed, pressing his leg up against hers in another small gesture of comfort.

"We should probably go down there to meet her since we're the ones who discovered it," Rocky suggested, meeting the gazes of Violet and Elliot.

"I don't think I really want to go anywhere today." Brooke spoke quietly, her head not lifting up from the floor.

"You two go down, I'll stay up here with Brooke," Violet said to her partner and her best friend, who nodded in response.

Elliot stood up. "We'll get you guys some food before we come back up for breakfast."

"Thank you." Brooke looked up at the two.

"Of course, Brooke. This will all blow over, and the person responsible _will_ be found," Rocky assured her, a small comforting smile on his face.

The two boys left the dorm room rather fast, knowing that Glynda would not take long to arrive on the scene, considering the severity of the situation.

Once the door closed, Brooke let out a long sigh as she allowed herself to collapse across the width of the bed. Violet plopped down next to the Faunus in a similar position, laying across the width of the bed.

"You aren't going to let me brood on this alone, are you?" Brooke asked, already knowing the answer, as she stared at the ceiling.

"Nope." Violet popped the "p".

Brooke sighed, closing her eyes. Her world of jello felt like it had gotten even thicker.

* * *

At 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning, the campus should have been dead silent. Yet, as Rocky and Elliot leaned against one of the arches in the courtyard close to the vandalized section, they heard the clicking of a familiar set of heels strutting aggressively towards them.

Rocky looked up to see his mother as the source of the clicking. She looked furious, although he knew very well it wasn't at them. Glynda was glaring at the ground that was stained with the graffiti, her face infuriated by the red spray paint.

"What do you two know about this?" she demanded to the two.

"Brooke was the first to see it. She tried to get Vi to go look. Brooke thinks it's her fault that someone did this. It's pretty clearly directed at her, it's centered around our dorm window, and no one else in this entire half of the dorm building is a Faunus. I saw it third, Elliot saw it fourth," Rocky explained to his mother.

"Where's Brooke now?" the professor asked.

Rocky jabbed his head towards the building. "She didn't want to leave the dorm. She's pretty upset about the whole thing, and rightfully so. This is so messed up."

Elliot nodded. "Violet stayed with her to make sure she's okay."

Glynda glared at the vandalized stone. "The sun's coming up soon, and people will be out. I don't want whoever did this to get the satisfaction of this going school-wide. We don't have enough time to wash it down classically, so we're going to have to do things a bit unconventionally until we have a greater period of time to fix this."

"How so?" Rocky asked.

"If you disturb the stone, I can flip it over with telekinesis. No one will ever know the difference." Glynda gestured to the area with her riding crop.

Rocky shifted uncomfortably. "Mom… I don't know if that's a good idea."

"I don't think we have any other options," Glynda said.

"Disturb the stone?" Elliot cocked an eyebrow.

Rocky sighed, looking at the graffiti. "Elliot, stand as far back as you can. Get off of any stone if possible."

"Why?"

"Just go! You'll see." The punk strolled over to the center of the graffiti.

Elliot nodded slowly, jogging over to one of the patches of grass that allowed a few trees to grow in the courtyard. He stood next to the tree, about twenty feet away from the graffiti. Giving a thumbs up to the mother-son duo, the two got to work.

Glynda surrounded herself in a protective shield with her crop as she observed her son in action. The punk sighed, puffing his air upward to move his flattened mohawk hair out of his eyes. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath, pushing his hands together, one in a fist and the other in a flat palm. Taking one more deep breath, Rocky's eyes shot open as he slammed his fist into the ground. The earth shattered beneath his fists, making a loud popping noise as the stained stone walkway spiraled into a web-style crack.

Rocky's fist was still connected with the ground, gritting his teeth as he groaned, struggling. As his eyes scrunched closed, he let out a loud yell as the stone burst into the air, sending Rocky flying backwards away from the ground his fist had been connected to. A massive rock beneath the ground burst out, sending the cracked stone pieces flying, along with the boy who had pulled the large boulder onto the surface.

Elliot ducked behind the tree, fearing the range of the explosion. When no stones clashed to the ground around him, the boy of light peered around from behind the tree. He saw Glynda standing, her protective bubble burst, as she suspended both her son and all of the stones in midair. The giant boulder was resting gently on the ground in the small crater left by the explosion of stone. Glynda was slowly lowering her crop, trying to gently place Rocky on the ground without smashing the floating stones down as well. Eventually, the boy was released from the telekinetic grasp as his feet touched the ground. He kneeled down, catching his breath, unable to look up from the stone as his mother used her semblance to manipulate the stones in the air, gently stacking them next to the crater.

Elliot ran over to his teammate, crouching down next to him. "Are you okay?"

Rocky nodded slowly, breathing very heavily.

"Bring him back up to your room. I've got it from here. I'll be in contact with your team later. Let him get some rest," Glynda said to the swordsman, who nodded in response.

Elliot helped the punk boy to his feet, the green and black haired boy wrapping his arm around the blonde's shoulder as the pair limped back towards the dorm hall. Behind them, Glynda had finally settled down all of the stones, and got to work on using her semblance to move the huge boulder out of the way. The sun was slowly rising over the courtyard, illuminating the trio, signifying that they had finished destroying the graffiti just in time for the rest of the school to wake up.

 **BREAK**

Team BRVE's dorm room had remained quiet through the ordeal happening outside. Brooke had finally managed to fall asleep again, having end up curled up on Violet's bed. She'd briefly considered moving over to her own, but her strained aura and emotional exhaustion had gotten the best of her.

Violet hadn't minded that Brooke had passed out on her bed. She'd seen her leader starting to fall asleep while laying across the width of the bed, the Faunus's long legs bent over the edge. The sharpshooter had insisted that Brooke at least lay on the bed normally, helping to move the suddenly very groggy girl onto the bed. Almost as soon as her head hit the pillow, the lumberjack was out like a light.

Violet found herself sitting next to her bed, on the floor, quietly playing with her scroll. She hadn't moved since Brooke had fallen asleep, only a few minutes after the boys had left. She'd heard the loud noise outside, which sounded as if an earthquake had broken out down below. Violet didn't stand up, but simply turned to see if the explosion-like sound had awoken Brooke. The wolf Faunus had not even stirred at the loud noise.

Violet finally moved from her position when she heard the unmistakable sound of the dorm room door being unlocked by a scroll. She looked up to see the door open and Rocky limp into the room, aided by Elliot. The purple girl leaped to her feet, forgetting that Brooke was asleep only a foot away.

"Rocky!" Violet exclaimed. "What happened? Are you okay?"

Brooke shot awake, sitting up immediately.

"I'm fine. My semblance… very taxing…" Rocky stammered as Elliot set the punk down on his bed.

"You… used your semblance?" Brooke asked, slowly starting to stand up.

Rocky nodded slowly, his breath shaky. "Elliot saw."

The two girls looked at the blonde. The boy sighed, still sitting next to Rocky on his bed.

"It was… Something. I'm not entirely sure what happened, but I'll describe what I can."

The blonde boy stood up, walking to the center of the room, gesturing for the two girls to sit down on Violet's bed.

"Rocky and Professor Goodwitch did some talking at first. I wasn't really sure what they were talking about. Something about 'disturbing the stone'. Then Rocky told me to get away from the graffiti and not to stand on the stone walkway. So, I went and watched from one of the trees. That's when the professor put a protective bubble around herself and Rocky walked to the center of the graffiti and did this."

Elliot mimicked what Rocky had done down on the ground, slamming his right fist into his left palm, taking a deep breath, and then punching the ground.

Elliot stood back up normally, looking back up at the girls. "Then the ground started to crack, like a spider web. The graffiti was cut up in a million cracks, with Rocky directly at the center, fist still connected to the Earth. He was grunting, like he was struggling. Eventually, the cracking stopped, but there was a bit of an explosion. I ducked behind the tree as Rocky and all the cracked stones flew backwards. I half expected to hear him slam into the ground. But there was no more noise. So, I looked out and saw that Professor Goodwitch had grabbed both Rocky and all the stones with her semblance. Sitting in the middle of the crater where the graffiti once was, was a giant boulder. Like, huge. Taller than anyone at the school, probably about seven feet tall. The professor had me bring him back up here once she set him down on the ground."

The blonde boy looked out the window, down at the ground below. The boulder was several feet away from the crater as Glynda was using her semblance to reassemble the graffiti stones into the crater, except upside down so that the graffiti didn't show.

Rocky sighed, breath still shaky. "I pulled the boulder out of the ground so my mom could flip the stones." He looked up at the trio, staring at him as he slowly spoke. "My love for rock music isn't the only reason I started going by Rocky, you know."

Violet cocked her head slightly. "I was the one who suggested that nickname, idiot."

"Wait, what?" Elliot asked.

Violet shook her head, forgetting momentarily that her other teammates didn't know much about the history between Rocky and herself. "Back at Signal, Rocky used to go by Ricky. When we became friends, I made a joke that he liked rock music so much that he should be called Rocky instead of Ricky. He liked the joke so much he ran with it."

"It wasn't just because of the music. I can control rocks as my semblance. I thought it was hilarious. I'm not very good at it though, as you can see." Rocky nodded to the window.

"I mean, you were good enough to complete the task. Your endurance with it could use some work, but you obviously have it honed enough to pull a boulder that big out of the ground." Elliot pointed to the window.

"I need a nap," Rocky said, laying down on his bed. "Wake me up whenever my mom shows up. She said she'd be coming up here later." Before anyone else could even reply, the punk was out like a light.

Brooke walked over to the window, looking down. The only sign of any issues on the ground below was the differently shaded section where the graffiti had once been. She still wasn't entirely sure how she felt about all of this.

"How you feeling Brooke?" Violet asked, putting a hand on her leader's shoulder.

"My brain is still all jello-y," the Faunus shrugged.

"Go nap, Brooke. I'll wake you up when Professor Goodwitch comes back." Violet nodded her head towards the beds.

The wolf Faunus wandered over to her own bed in a zombie-like state. Like her partner, the moment Brooke's head hit the pillow, she was out like a light.

Violet turned to her partner and sighed. "We have _got_ to get them into endurance training."

Elliot nodded. "I understand Brooke, but Rocky? Everyone who went to a basic combat school has a pretty good grasp on their semblance. I've never seen anyone above the age of like, 14, get that exhausted when using their semblance. Signal had a semblance training unit, right?"

The purple-haired girl shook her head. "I wasn't around when they did semblance training, so I never saw Rocky's training for it."

Elliot cocked an eyebrow. "You weren't around? Did you transfer in or something? I thought you two were friends for years."

"We were. I had a slew of family emergencies in my third year and I had to take about two months off. That's when Rocky became friends with Yang. I'd asked her about it when I came back, but her own semblance made it a bit hard for her to remember much of anything during that unit, other than herself of course."

Elliot looked confused. "I don't think I've ever seen Yang's semblance."

"If she gets hurt or angry she goes like, crazy. Her eyes go red and she like, lights on fire. It's pretty cool, but it gave a tunnel vision effect. Rocky never liked to talk about his semblance. He always said he just didn't find many chances to use it."

Elliot nodded, looking over at the punk, who was still fast asleep. "I see… I'm going to go see if I can find Ren. Pyrrha says he makes some really great pancakes."

"That's probably better than some stolen muffins and bagels from the dining hall," Violet said.

The blonde boy ducked out of the room, leaving Violet alone with the two who were fast asleep. The purple girl looked back and forth between the two for a moment. Her best friend and her leader. Brooke didn't seem like the type to let the others know that the message had bothered her. Violet had found that the Faunus was constantly trying to be strong, constantly trying to prove herself as a good leader. No Faunus in their right mind could just push a message like that under the rug. Hell, no _decent person_ in their right mind could let that go.

Violet let out a long sigh. She'd grown up in a world of corporations, being the daughter of Vincent Vince, CEO of Vince Weapons Company. She'd learned very fast that her family was not like other corporations in several different senses. For one, her family had always put equality above profits. It was astonishing to Violet how rare this trait was in the corporate world. Her father had often received criticisms for his decisions, but it had paid off in the long run. Many of Violet's peers who she had been forced to socialize with at corporate events had become fearful of the White Fang in the last few years. The once peaceful organization of Faunus had become violent as conditions worsened throughout the world.

Violet had never once had to worry about it. Every time there were reports of robberies, any Vince Weapons remained untouched. The only exception was one instance when the Schnee Dust Company had worked out some sort of deal with Vince Weapons, and a train cars contained mixed product from _both_ companies in an attempt to sway the White Fang from touching the product. It didn't work, and the train cars filled with both sets of products were stolen anyways. Even so, a few days later, the VWC got a tip that their cargo had been returned to an empty warehouse once owned by the VWC. The tip was right, and every single weapon and piece of ammo from that train had been found, but all of the dust from the SDC was long gone. This ended this protective business relationship between the VWC and the SDC, as well as sparked a greater rivalry between the two companies.

Violet had always tried to be nice to Weiss, even before they had arrived at Beacon. A hundred various event in the corporate world had forced the two heiresses to cross paths, although Weiss had always been _extremely_ rude to the sharpshooter. When the train car incident occurred, Weiss had gotten even _worse_ , as if the SDC's treatment of Faunus was Violet's fault. The sharpshooter had heard _far_ too many of the fencer's rants about Faunus to trust that Weiss wouldn't lash out against Brooke at some point.

Despite growing up hearing the rants of the SDC's heiress, Violet couldn't imagine anyone, even Weiss, being so blunt about their bigotry. It was one thing to have opinions behind closed doors, as outdated as those opinions may be, but it was an entirely other thing to leave a message like _that_ outside the window the night after a Faunus had shown a bigot up in a sparring match.

Violet collapsed onto her own bed with a sigh. While the message was hidden, the sharpshooter knew very well that this entire situation was _very_ far from over.


End file.
